


Discontinuity

by SaltCore



Series: Interpolation and Conjecture [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Hurt Jesse McCree, Justice Siblings, Language, M/M, angst with happy ending, blackwatch bros, meddling artificial intelligence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: They tell him his name is Jesse McCree. They tell him he’s a vigilante and a mercenary and a brave man and a good man. He supposes he’ll have to take their word for it.He can’t remember for himself.





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing he feels is the pain. It’s dull but pervasive, a low throbbing ache he can’t ignore. Just being aware of it exhausts him, but since he is awake, he wants to know where he is. He tries to open his eyes, but even his eyelids seem to hurt. Curiosity pushes him through.

There’s not a lot of difference between his eyes being open and closed. It’s dark both ways, but with his eyes open there are tiny smears of white, so he focuses on those. The blurs resolve into small, bright pinpricks of light. Staring at them makes his head throb harder, but he doesn’t let himself give up, not yet.

 It’s quiet, and he can’t see anything but those lights no matter where he trains his eyes. The air smells sharp, somewhat unpleasant. There’s a dry warmth surrounding one of his hands. He tries to grab it, to touch it back, but all he can make his fingers do is spasm.

“Jesse?” a voice beside him rumbles. He turns toward it but that makes his whole body light up with pain, and he groans. The voice shushes him, and the warmth vanishes from his hand and reappears at his hairline. Fingers brush gently along his scalp, back and forth in a strangely soothing rhythm. He can’t see the other person in the dark, no matter how he tries to focus. His eyelids are so heavy, and he gives in and lets them fall before he can work up the strength to ask _Who’s Jesse?_

 

* * *

 

The next time he opens his eyes it’s bright, painfully so. There’s noise too, intermittent and low. It’s voices, and the sound of them settles strangely in his ears. They’re like something between his teeth, just out of reach and he can’t help but worry at them. Why are they familiar?

He opens his eyes, squinting in the bright light. Two people, a man and a woman are sitting on either side of him, leaning over his bed. There’s a pile of cards between his calves, and they both have a few in their hands.

“Fold,” the woman grumbles, dropping her cards by his foot. The man chuckles and leans back. He’s got a mop of bright purple hair that’s black at the roots, and he runs his hands through it before lacing his fingers behind his head. Most of his torso and one entire arm is artificial, grey and white material with green lights glowing softly. The artificial material disappears into a pair of sweat pants, which are a faded red. 

The woman is frowning at the man, her chin resting in one hand. Her features are sharp and her eyes bright and lively. She has a tattoo under one eye. Even hunched over, there’s no hiding her height. Her hair is chin length and dark, reflecting the overhead lights.

“Uhm,” he starts. He meant to say hello, but his voice cracked immediately and his throat hurts like hell. Both of them snap to look at him, eyes wide.

“Jesse!” the man cries, diving forward and wrapping his arms around his middle. His voice is soft and raspy, but warm.

“ _Qué onda_ , Jesse,” the woman says, leaning in to squeeze his shoulder. “Genji, give him his water, he sounds awful.”

“Bossy!” the man grouses, leaning back and reaching for a plastic cup at the side table. He knows the woman spoke to him in Spanish first, and then English at the man. He can remember the difference, and he can call up both languages, easy as breathing. The man hands him the cup with two hands. He accepts the same way, and notices for the first time that one of his own hands is metal. He glosses over that fact for the moment in favor of drinking. The water is tepid and stale, and it’s amazing. He drains the cup in practically one gulp and tries to think back, tries to remember a time water ever tasted so good.

There’s nothing.

He looks between the man and the woman, and they’re looking at him with big, relieved smiles. They’re so _happy_ and they might as well be perfect strangers. He doesn’t even know their names, but, from the way they’re acting, he knows he should.

Come to think of it, he doesn’t know his own name, or where he is, or why he’s got a metal left hand. He clenches it, and it responds as quick as his flesh one. He prods up his arm, and it’s metal all the way to his shoulder. He pulls down the hospital gown to get a look at the puckered seam where the metal meets flesh. It looks old, really old. Whatever injury landed him here, he’s apparently had worse. He lets go of the gown and looks to his visitors. They’re still smiling, but it’s not as bright. They’ve picked up something’s not quite right.

No sense in dragging this out.

“Thanks for the water, friend,” he says, setting the cup aside. “I, um, don’t remember y’all though. I don’t think I remember shit.”

He winces when their expressions both fall from elation through shock and land in a stunned hurt.

“Oh, Jesse,” the man says softly.

“That’s me? That’s my name, right?”

“Yeah. You’re Jesse McCree. I’m Genji,” he says . “You’re my best friend.”

“I’m Fareeha. You’re like a brother to me,” the woman adds.

“So, what happened?”

“You got your shit kicked in,” Genji says, shrugging one shoulder.

“ _Genji_ ,” Fareeha hisses, and she tries to swat him from the other side of the bed. He leans away and her arms aren’t quite long enough to reach, so she ends up waving ineffectually.

“Don’t ‘Genji’ me, you had some whole thing planned because, and I quote, ‘Mr. Hot-Shit-Hold-My-Beer got his ass kicked on a literal milk run.’” Genji turns to him, very solemn. “You really were getting milk.” He gets hit in the side of the head with a few of the cards.

He frowns, trying to sort out the dissonance between what they’re saying and how they’re acting. He’s clearly been hurt before, and they’re concerned enough to sit with him, but not concerned enough not to tease him. He supposes he should be relieved.

“I’ll get Angie,” Fareeha says, scooting her chair back and standing. Genji hums softly and seems to appraise him. His dark eyes are intense, maybe more so for the state of his face, that is to say, deeply scarred. He’s an intimidating figure. Jesse tries not to fidget under the scrutiny.

Then, like a switch has flipped, he slouches back into the chair and smiles again. He lifts his heels and drops them on the edge of the bed, near Jesse’s knee and then leans the chair back onto its rear two feet. It creaks a little under the sudden stress.

“You’re a lucky man. There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation a lack of mutually assured blackmail presents.”

“ _What_?”

Genji laughs, the sound thin but warm.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll remember eventually.”

He can’t come up with a response to that before Fareeha returns with another woman. She’s slim and blonde, with a worried expression.

“Hello, Jesse. I’m Angela, your doctor. Fareeha said you were having trouble remembering things?”

“Yeah. I got nothin’ before I woke up.”

Her lips thin.

“You took a very bad blow to the head. You’ve been in a comatose state for almost two weeks. Memory trouble isn’t unheard of for someone with a traumatic brain injury, though I’m sorry to hear it. We were all very excited when you began waking up.”

“Began?”

“This is the first time you’ve properly regained consciousness, but you had a brief moment of wakefulness yesterday afternoon.”

Angela steps forward and lays a warm hand on his forearm, the flesh one, and squeezes gently.

“You’re with friends here, Jesse. We’ll help you in every way we can. Many people regain their memories with time.”

She seems so sincere. It’s a hell of a bed side manner. Genji and Fareeha are nodding behind her, looking determined. He supposes he’s in good hands.

 

* * *

 

A _gorilla_ visits him that afternoon. He introduces himself as Winston, and explains where he is. The building is a defunct outpost for a disbanded global paramilitary peace keeping organization. The people are the vigilantes continuing that organization’s legacy. He was in the previous, legal incarnation in an unacknowledged, covert capacity. He works with them now, despite their status. He apparently has a rather sizable bounty on his head, though Winston assures him it’s not all warranted. He reads between the lines, surmises that at least some of it is. That will be worth asking about, at some point.

He gets a dossier on everyone at the Watchpoint, including himself. They’re _dense_ , doing nothing for his persistent headache. He tries to read the first one from beginning to end, one Reinhardt Wilhelm, but he gives up half way through and only focuses on putting together faces and names for the rest.

His own is remarkably unhelpful. Most of it is redacted, and what’s left is annotated with _alleged_ or _unconfirmed_ , even his name and date of birth. His service dates, at least, seem to be a sure thing. But if the date of birth is even close to right, he’d have joined up when he was only seventeen. No wonder whoever had compiled this felt the need to call bullshit.

His service history is essentially blank, but there’s a list of commendations and reprimands at the end of the file. He had apparently received medals for bravery and length of service, a few for receiving injury in action. He also has a long list of formal reprimands. Insubordination, destruction of property, one that’s a just a note in all lower case _fucking hell kid you can’t just take a piss in jack’s potted plants just because we’ve been in this meeting for three hours_.

He looks at the line in disbelief. Wonders who Jack was, who wrote that note. Who was putting up with someone like that, and why for so long? What _made_ someone like that? He is apparently the sort of man who’s spent his whole life deeply involved in something clandestine, but who didn’t have enough sense to keep out of trouble. He looks at his arm again, wonders if he’d deserved whatever had happened to make him lose it.

The last file is a report from the night he was injured. Apparently, only one person was with him, one Hanzo Shimada. Jesse pulls up his picture from his dossier. He cuts a severe figure, staring hard eyed into the camera, with immaculately trimmed beard and hair. He’s frowning, dour, with something almost haughty in the set of his eyes, like he doesn’t think he should be photographed. He’s handsome, Jesse admits to himself, but untouchable.

Jesse goes back to the report. It’s terse, direct, with no words wasted. During a reconnaissance mission, they were getting supplies—milk, Genji said, though hopefully more than just that—when they were attacked. Hanzo seems sure that the man was an assassin sent for himself, and that Jesse was collateral damage. Hanzo killed the assassin, and sent for help. No one else saw. The mission was aborted.

Jesse rests tablet in his lap. So that’s what happened. He reaches up and gingerly brushes his fingers across the back of his head. There’s a scar under a patch of short hair. It doesn’t feel like much, and yet—

It took his whole life from him.

 

* * *

 

Fareeha and Genji know more than he’ll ever glean from his dossier, and seem to be trying to outdo each other with sordid tales from his past.

“Yeah, Mom burned that boa.” Fareeha’s almost in tears she’s giggling so hard, and Jesse is feeling a strange kind of second hand embarrassment for his past self.  Perhaps he should give up drinking, if he hasn’t already.

“Okay, okay, enough about me, how do I know you two?”

Fareeha and Genji look at each other, and they silently hash out the order. Fareeha speaks first.

“I was about twelve? Mom and Uncle Gabe, well they called it _recruitment_ but really, you’d gotten in trouble and were about to go to prison, they brought you into Blackwatch hoping you could make something of yourself. And, well, Mom kept up with you, made sure you were adjusting.” Fareeha shrugs. “Mom treated you like a son. Eventually you became my brother.”

There has to be more to it than that, and Jesse immediately wants to know more about Fareeha’s mother and her ‘Uncle Gabe’, but Genji starts speaking.             

“We met about ten years ago,” Genji says. “Like the fifth thing I asked you was where to get coke, and you said you knew a guy. We share a profound comradery.”

“Seriously, you’ve been up each other’s asses since you met. It was like one of those meet-cute romcoms, except Genji was in the ICU and you were assigned to sweet talk him into ratting out his crime family. It was so saccharine we all needed dental work,” Fareeha says.

“That’s made up,” Jesse says, crossing his arms. Genji’s dossier was also heavily redacted, and he has to know it.

“Nope. Not a word,” Genji says, trying not to smile. “Ask Angela, she was around back then.”

“I will,” Jesse means it, too. He believes he and Genji have been friends that long, but _seriously_. He’s an amnesiac, not stupid.

Of course, there is the matter of Genji’s extensive reconstruction.  He’d had to have spent a lot of time in an ICU over it. If they are as close as Genji’s been acting, then he had to have known what caused that. He wants to know now, though it’s not really pertinent. It has to be a sore subject. How could it not be?

“Jess?” Fareeha says. He jerks, then feels abashed. They’re both staring at him. They must have thought he just drifted off.

“Just, just tryin’ to digest it all.”

They don’t look convinced—observant, the both of them, he’ll have to remember that—and Jesse feels like he should come out and ask. He’s going to have to ask a lot of probing questions if he wants to get a sense of who he used to be and who these people are.

“If you don’t mind me askin’, what happened to you, Genji?”

Genji looks down at himself, almost like he’d forgotten.

“Oh, um, I got this during a period of low impulse control.”

Jesse looks wide eyed between Genji and Fareeha. Fareeha has sucked her lips between her teeth and her eyebrows are near her hairline.

“Yeah that’s one way to put it,” she says, her voice just a little high and squeaky. Jesse can’t tell if she’s about to laugh or panic or both. Genji shrugs one shoulder. It doesn’t explain anything really, except that he doesn’t want to tell him more. Well, Jesse can’t blame him. He can leave it alone.

“Speaking of low impulse control, want to hear about the time you got the world’s dumbest DUI?”

 

* * *

 

Angela releases him from her care late that day, hopeful that returning to a more normal routine would help jog his memories. Genji offered to show him back to his bunk, chatting animatedly about life in the Gibraltar Watchpoint and its various merits relative to the others he’s inhabited as they go. Jesse finds himself only able to nod along, feeling slightly overcome. Genji stops mid thought as they come up to yet another identical looking intersection. There’s a man crossing through.

“Hanzo!” Genji calls, waving. He stops, turns to face them. His eyebrows arch, but that’s all the reaction they get. Jesse waves weakly. Genji drags him over to make the introduction. Reintroduction.

“Jesse, this is my brother.”

Hanzo stares at him for a moment with something like unease, then bends at the waist in a quick bow. Jesse’s not quite sure what to do with that, and, perhaps sensing his confusion, Hanzo extends his hand. Jesse takes it, that motion instinctual and automatic. He looks down at their hands. Hanzo’s knuckles are raw, split and bruised along the bones.

“McCree, it is good to see you on your feet again,” Hanzo says.

Hanzo is somewhat softer in person than he was in his photograph, though not by much. A little less dour, a little more wary perhaps. A little shorter than Jesse expected, too, though just as handsome.

“I, uh, I supposed I have you to thank for that,” Jesse says.

Hanzo’s expression shutters immediately, and he withdraws his hand just a little too quickly, leaving Jesse’s hanging the air. Hanzo’s hands curl into fists at his sides. His knuckles blanch, sending the split skin into sharp relief.

“There is no thanks necessary. I only wish I had acted faster.”

There’s something sharp in his tone, something at odds with his very guarded expression. It’s almost as if he’s angry. Jesse forgets to respond while trying to puzzle it out.

“I have reserved a time slot on the range soon, I must be on my way. McCree. Genji.” He tips his body at each of them in turn, then walks off down the hall. Jesse glances at Genji, and he has a tight look. Genji watches his brother until he disappears around a corner.

“Somethin' wrong?” Jesse asks.

“Hmm? Ah, no. C’mon.”

Jesse doesn’t quite believe him, but he also can’t really say for sure. He decides to drop it. It’s not as if he’s much of a sounding board right now. Instead, he focuses on trying to memorize the path Genji is taking. There’s directions helpfully stenciled on the walls at every intersection, with arrows pointing to the barracks. Genji seems to be following them, rather than taking some shortcut.

There’s not much in the way of transition from not-barracks to barracks. The walls of the doorway are double thickness, which Jesse has already figured means that two prefabricated units have been joined, and that’s it. Genji leads him to a door, third one on the right. He punches in the code for him which McCree thinks is a little odd—zero, eight, two, three he notes—and the door slides open.

“We all did a little cleaning up for you, Dr. Ziegler’s orders,” Genji says. The room is small, all the fixtures maximally utilitarian, but even accounting for that there’s still not much in the room. He’s apparently not one for posters or pictures, and there’s little in the way of kitsch. The little desk has a wide brimmed hat sitting next to a vase full of flowers with balloons. The balloons are bright pink and rabbit shaped and pretty much the only color in the room.

Genji snorts beside him.

“Those are Hana’s doing,” he says, amusement warming his voice. Jesse walks over and pokes one balloon. It bumps into its comrades, sending the whole bunch into slow but chaotic motion. He picks up the hat and puts it on, wanting to see if it sparks anything. 

Nothing.

He riffles through the drawers and closet. Odds and ends in his desk. Clothes in the closet, with a beat up duffle bag on the floor and an extra hanger on the rack. A gun in one drawer under his bed. A half full bottle of whiskey and a half dozen MREs in another. Toiletries in the bathroom.

“You’ve been on the move the last few years,” Genji says unprompted. “But you were never much for hoarding things.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Genji studies him with a sad half smile. Jesse tries not to fidget. Something about being looked at, he doesn’t like it.

“Dinner is usually around 1900. I’ll come get you then, if you like?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Genji claps him on the shoulder, then leaves. Jesse drops himself onto the edge of the bed, takes his hat off, and sets it beside him. He scrubs his hands over his face, but the metal one is cold, and it surprises him. He stares at it.

It moves like he expects. He pokes at the mattress, then the bed itself. He can feel the difference, though not with the same sensitivity as his real hand. It seems nimble enough though, a good replacement. He tugs at the collar of his shirt, but he can’t really see the joint, so he just pulls it off and goes to the mirror in the bathroom.

He’s a piece of work.

The skin around the prosthetic is gnarled with dark scars. The upper arm is sleeker than the forearm, almost like they’re of different manufacture. Hell, they might be.

Jesse pokes at the skin over his left pectoral. There’s a large tattoo of _something._ It looks a little like a skull. His coarse body hair is abruptly punctuated with scars all across his chest and stomach. Some look old, some very fresh. There are scars on his arm, and he twists to see his back. More tattoos, fewer scars. He’s not sure what to make of it. People don’t get much opportunity to attack him from behind, he supposes. 

He curls his arm, and there’s a thick bulge of bicep. His forearm is thick, more toned than his upper arm. He pokes across his chest and stomach. Thin layer of fat, then muscle. He leans closer to the mirror. There’s a split in his lip, with a chip out of the tooth underneath. His beard is thick, bushy even. He guesses he shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not as if he’s been shaving lately.

His hair looks limp and greasy. If he hasn’t been shaving, he definitely hasn’t been showering. He kicks off his shoes and pants (more scars, more tattoos. It’s like he can’t stand unmarked skin) and turns the water on in the shower.

 

* * *

 

His clothes are all variations on the same theme. A few sturdy button downs, a few pairs of jeans. A couple serapes. He pulls on a shirt and pants, and reaches for a serape but hesitates. It’s warm, probably too warm for the heavy wool. And now that he’s thinking about it, he can’t remember how to wear it, only what it’s called. He frowns and lets his hand drop.

He jumps at the knock at the door. Genji is standing on the other side, looking relaxed.

“Hungry?” he asks.

Truthfully, he’s not particularly, but he needs to see more of the Watchpoint, start to get his bearings.

“Yup,” he answers.

Genji gives him a lopsided smile and turns to lead the way. He’s a little quieter than before, but Jesse can’t say he minds. It gives him a better opportunity to pay attention to the route.

They’re following the arrows labeled _Mess_ this time. This place is big, it seems like there should be more people, but they don’t encounter anyone else on their way. Thinking back, it had felt like there had been a huge number of dossiers, but now it doesn’t seem like much at all if that’s really everyone living here.

Genji stops at a corner.

“Fair warning, everyone is pretty excited to see you awake. They all mean well, I promise.”

Jesse raises his eyebrows, but Genji doesn’t elaborate. He just starts walking again. The mess is a large room, a kitchen in the back and tables up by the door. One in particular has food piled high and almost a dozen people gathered around.

Some shout his first name, some his last. They’re all pretty exuberant. He looks around at everyone, trying to recall the names from what he’d read. He notices Hanzo is absent. He’s not sure if anyone else is; he can’t remember exactly how many dossiers there were.

 He gets hugs and pats on the back. His sister is here, takes up a post on his left. Genji hovers on his right. Jesse is grateful for the buffer almost immediately.

“Now, now, let him eat,” Angela says, shooing people back to the table. He barely tastes anything, trying to focus on all the things he’s being told. They’ve made, to the best of their ability, his favorites, though apparently he’s not picky. There’s a certain brand of hot sauce he uses on almost everything.  He made the best omelets in the Watchpoint and never told anyone his secret.

He can feel a headache coming on.

 

* * *

 

Jesse tosses and turns most of the night. The bed isn’t _uncomfortable_ but there’s something wrong. It makes his skin crawl to have his back to the door, but pushing his back to the wall feels wrong too. He tries lying on his back, but that’s no better. He wonders if it’s all the sleeping he did in the last week, his body not ready to go down again.

He sighs, long and shuddering, and then sits up and runs his hands through his hair. He’s restless, and he doesn’t want to keep lying here. He decides he won’t. A walk might do him some good.

He pulls his clothes back on and slips out his door. The hallway is dark and quiet. He creeps down it, careful of making noise. He doesn’t want to wake anyone; he really would prefer to be alone.

He goes back in the direction of the mess, then picks another set of arrows to follow. He tries to keep track of the turns in his head, watches the variations as one unit changes to another. This place rambles, almost haphazardly. It’s old too, with dust thick in corners and paint fading. Jesse wonders how long they’ve all been living here.

In spite of his caution, he still gets lost. At first, he isn’t worried, but he can’t seem to remember where to backtrack. He finds dead ends and locked doors, and, owing to the prefabricated nature of the buildings, everything looks the same. His frustration has him darting off in random directions, hoping that he’ll just get lucky.

Jesse barrels through a door, and ends up outside. He stands there, blinking, utterly bewildered. He had been _sure_ this was the right way.  He looks up, and the vault of the night sky is dotted with stars, with a bright moon hanging high above him. He hadn’t given much thought to precisely what outside would be like here. There was too much else to digest. There’s a persistent soft breeze that smells of salt, and the interplay of the orange security lights and blue moonlight casts strange, surreal shadows on all the structures. He can barely hear the crashing of waves. The humidity is thick, almost cloying, and he finds himself fidgeting with his suddenly sticky clothes.

Seaside, apparently. Must be summertime. He looks around, but the hulking rocks and squat metal buildings don’t offer any clues to the way back to the barracks. He scrubs his hands down his face. He should have just stayed put.

“Hello, Jesse,” someone says. Jesse jerks, whipping his head around looking for the speaker.

Hanzo is standing at the edge of one of the shadows, looking at him with polite interest, but his gaze is intensely assessing. Jesse stares. He hadn’t heard a thing. Hanzo steps closer.

“Hi,” Jesse answers lamely. He should just ask Hanzo to tell him how to get back to the barracks, but his pride stays his tongue. Even if he can’t remember, surely he can figure it out.

“It’s late,” Hanzo says.

“Yeah,” Jesse huffs. “I think I’ve slept too much here lately.”

Hanzo hums in response, giving him a shrewd look. Jesse feels pinned down. At that moment, Jesse remembers Hanzo’s dossier mentioned his work as an assassin. Right now, Jesse believes it.

“I was just heading to the kitchen. Maybe something to drink might help? Sometimes I find it helps me,” Hanzo says. Jesse’s not sure if he meant to offer him that way out, but Jesse latches onto it.

“Worth a shot.”

Hanzo walks past him back to the door, pulling it open and holding it for Jesse. There’s something sharp and a little unpleasant in the air as he walks by—cigarette smoke, Jesse remembers. It’s the smell of cigarette smoke. Without a word, Hanzo walks just half a step ahead of Jesse, leading the way on silent feet. Jesse keeps glancing back to make sure he’s really there, that he hadn’t vanished into some shadow when Jesse’s attention lapsed.

Hanzo, in a first for today, doesn’t try to talk. He doesn’t try to tell Jesse about himself, doesn’t offer up information of his own. Jesse finds that he was braced for it, clenching in preparation to be told more things he should already know, but it doesn’t come. Hanzo just walks.

It’s a relief, honestly.

Jesse gets his bearings again before they make it to the kitchen, but he follows Hanzo anyway. The only light in the room is coming from under the cabinets, but it’s more than enough. Hanzo fills the electric kettle from the tap and pulls two mugs from the cabinet.

“There’s honey there,” Hanzo murmurs, gesturing to another cabinet by Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse opens it, and after a moment comes up with a bottle that’s faintly sticky near the top. He holds it up and Hanzo nods. He’s laid out a box of tea bags and a bottle of lemon juice on the counter by the kettle.

Hanzo leans back against the counter so that he’s facing the room. He crosses his arms over his chest and stares down at the floor a few feet in front of his feet. Jesse wonders if he should say something. He feels strange standing around in silence, but Hanzo doesn’t seem like he’s inclined to conversation.

The kettle whistles softly, and Hanzo turns back to it. He pours water into both mugs and drops a tea bag in each, then gently pushes one closer to Jesse.

“I suggest a spoonful of honey, and a few drops of the lemon juice,” Hanzo says. His voice is oddly serious for just relaying a recipe.

Jesse pulls out his tea bag when Hanzo does, then watches as he methodically combines the other ingredients. Jesse copies his as best as he can. Hanzo clears everything away, business like, then turns back to face the room with his mug in his hands.

Jesse lifts his to his lips, taking a tentative sip. It’s good. Just sweet enough, with the tartness providing contrast. The warmth spreads down his throat to his chest, soothing. Jesse takes a bigger sip. It’s something—homey, maybe?

                _A warm hand on his forehead._

_“Oh, baby, you don’t look so good.”_

                _She made him tea like this; the mug used to seem enormous. Her smile was warm like sunlight, and her voice was soft with concern._

_Mama. He had a mama once._

“Jesse, are you all right?” Hanzo asks, staring at him with concern. Jesse lifts his hand to his forehead.

“Yeah, yeah, just—I think the tea knocked somethin’ loose.”

Hanzo’s eyebrows lift in silent invitation, but he doesn’t actually ask. Jesse licks his lips.

“Not much. Just somethin' about my mama. I think she made her tea like this too.”

It’s almost like Jesse said something wrong. There’s the barest flinch, and Hanzo glances away from him. Slowly, over the span of several sips, his shoulders curl inward. Jesse almost wonders if he’s imagining it.

Hanzo finishes his tea, dropping the mug in the dishwasher. Whether on purpose or not, he doesn’t look at Jesse once as he does. Maybe Jesse is seeing something that’s not there. It’s late. The other man must just be tired.

“Goodnight, Jesse,” Hanzo says.

He walks out the door without waiting for a reply.

 

* * *

 

_“Jesse!”_

_Jesse hasn’t moved. It felt like it took an eternity to subdue the assassin, and Jesse hasn’t moved in all that time. There’s blood, there’s so much blood, in his hair and on his shirt, and he still isn’t moving._

_Hanzo drops to his knees beside Jesse, digs his fingers under his jaw looking for a pulse. It’s there, it’s slow but it’s there._

_“Jesse?” Hanzo says. He lifts Jesse’s head off the pavement, cradles it in his hands._

_Jesse still doesn’t wake up._

_Panic freezes Hanzo for a moment before he can get himself under control. He has to call the others. He has to get Jesse help. There is no place for his fear. Time is of the essence._

_He cannot think about what he will do if Jesse never wakes up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a self-referential fuck lmao. There’s a shit load of references to my tumblr drabbles, I couldn’t resist.
> 
> Come say hi at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


	2. Chapter 2

Breakfast is a calmer affair than dinner was. Jesse wanders in on his own, groggy from the poor sleep last night. He lets his body operate on its own instinct. His feet take him to the coffee machine, and his hands pull a mug from the cabinet. He pours a generous amount of coffee, and after he takes a sip he turns around to survey the room.

Genji is sitting at a table with Hana and Lucio. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s their names. Genji waves him over, and Jesse obliges. He drops heavily into the seat next to his friend, ending up across from the young woman. She grins broadly.

“Good morning, huckleberry,” she says brightly.

Jesse’s a little nonplussed at that, but he responds in kind.

“Good mornin’ yerself, Hana. Uh, thanks for the flowers.”

Hana’s smile doesn’t fall exactly, but it loses something in her eyes. Jesse doesn’t think he could have missed it if he tried.

“What? I say something wrong?”

“No, no,” she says immediately. “It’s just, you never call me by my name.”

She laughs, but it’s forced, even he can tell. He furrows his eyebrows.

“What’d I used to call you then?”

“Cottontail,” she huffs. “It’s a really long story, like, really long. But if you don’t remember, I promise I’ll tell you.”

Her smile turns to something mischievous.

“One hint, there was a pack of feral coyotes. Two dozen.”

“The hell?”

He looks at Genji and Lucio for confirmation, and they both laugh.

“Okay, dude, normally I would be on your side, but you did this,” Lucio says. He winces, as if he realized Jesse can’t know what he means, then barrels on. “ _You_ are the one who kept trying to bullshit her, until it turned into a game, and now neither of you are willing to lose.”

“I can’t help you, only you two know the story,” Genji says, shrugging.

Hana is the picture of innocence. She takes a delicate sip from the can in front of her, giving nothing away. Jesse rolls his eyes and finishes his coffee in one long gulp.

“Well, I have a stream to get to,” Hana says, getting up. “See you later, boys.”

“Should I crash this one?” Lucio asks.

“Oh, definitely,” Hana calls back over her shoulder.

Lucio pushes back from the table himself, offering a wave in parting. Genji elbows Jesse, just enough to get his attention. Jesse turns to him, eyebrows quirked.

“It’s every man for himself for food at breakfast, I’m afraid.”

Genji gets up, starts toward the back of the room where the stove and refrigerator are. Jesse follows, taking his empty mug. He pours himself another cup of coffee and inspects the contents of the refrigerator. There’s plenty of leftovers from last night, so he pulls out a plate and turns to the microwave.

Genji moved to the end of the counter with the tea kettle. There’s a second kettle, not an electric one for heating water, but a ceramic one resting on a heater for actual tea. Genji pours himself another cup, but there’s only enough left to fill it three quarters. Genji purses his lips, then starts riffling through the cabinets. As if sensing the curious look Jesse is giving him, he starts speaking.

“I usually leave some tea for my brother, if he’s not already awake. Even he doesn’t finish it, it never seems to go to waste.”

“He a late riser?” Jesse asks. Genji shakes his head.

“He keeps odd hours. Some mornings I wake up to a kettle myself.”

 Genji portions out loose leaf tea from a tin box, setting it in an infuser. It’s certainly not the same stuff Hanzo used last night, doesn’t smell anything like. Jesse frowns a little. He supposes a man can take his tea more than one way, but if he’s drinking this stuff like Genji drinks it, then that’s a far cry from the honey softened drink they had shared.

Jesse decides against mentioning anything about it. Probably not important. The microwave beeps, and he retrieves his breakfast.

 

* * *

 

Jesse’s bouncing his leg. He can’t stop. He hates the sound of his soles squeaking on the floor but he can’t stop bouncing, because he tried and then he was just taping his fingers instead. Genji turns to look at him, one eye brow quirked.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Jesse growls. Shit, that was a little much. Instead of looking offended or taken aback, Genji just squints at him like he’s trying to puzzle something out.

“ _Oh_ , I know what this is.”

“What, head trauma makes you fidgety too?”  _And bitchy? Jesus._

Genji looks around. There’s Hana and Lucio shooting the shit in the corner and Reinhardt snacking and reading something on his tablet.

“Okay, follow me and _don’t tell Angela_ ,” Genji whispers. Genji unfolds and hops over the back of the couch and Jesse gets up to follow, grumbling under his breath. Genji moves almost silently at pretty good clip, and somehow that’s irritating, which is stupid, which just makes Jesse more irritated.

They go to the barracks, and Genji leads him to the very end of the hall, right before another join between two units. Genji pounds on the last door on the left. It slides open, revealing a Hanzo that’s just on this side of irate.

“ _What_?” he snaps. Genji holds out a hand, and Hanzo stares at it, incredulous.

“C’mon, I know you’ve got some.”

“Some what?”

Genji gestures— _gimmegimme_.

“Genji, please, just spit it out,” Hanzo says, his shoulders sagging.

“Angela threw out all his cigarillos, like she does every time he ends up in medical, and now he’s having a nic fit. Help us out before he tries to chew through the furniture.”

The door slides shut as Hanzo steps back, and for a second Jesse thinks that was Hanzo’s way of telling them both to fuck off. But it opens again a second later and Hanzo holds out a box of cigarettes and a disposable lighter, which Jesse takes.

“Thanks,” Jesse says, a little bewildered.

“Do not tell Dr. Ziegler where you got these,” Hanzo says, and then he shuts the door again.

Genji shepherds him back to his room, punches in his door code again, and opens the window once inside.

“Go on, you’ll feel better.”

“Ain’t these bad for you?”

“You’re bad for me when you’re withdrawing.”

Jesse pulls out a cigarette and stuffs it between his lips. He has to try twice to get the lighter to ignite, but he manages to light the cigarette.

That first drag is fucking magic. The tension immediately melts out of Jesse.  He takes another drag and then sticks his hand out the window to flick away the ash. He does it without thinking, his hands clearly familiar with the motion. The smoke blows back in a little, the smell overpowering everything else. Genji plucks the box and lighter out of his hand and lights one of his own, his eyes never leaving Jesse. Jesse gets the feeling Genji’s gotten used to not being caught staring.

Jesse puts the cigarette back in his mouth, lets it hang there. Something about the motion or the taste of the filter triggers a memory, or rather, a hundred memories that are all essentially the same.

_Smoking in relative silence, over and over again, with dozens of people. Genji in his Mark I cybernetics, pulsing faintly red. The respirator would fold back then, instead of coming off entirely. A brick shit house of a man, dressed in swat black, with a beard, thick where his face wasn’t scarred. His voice is a low rumble, but it’s familiar to the point of comforting. Dozens of others, a blur of tac gear and dark corners and quiet tension._

Jesse takes another drag.

“Uh, Genji?”

Genji hums in acknowledgment, turning to blow smoke out the window. He must’ve caught the wind right, because it doesn’t blow back into the room.

“Do you know a guy, uhm, big and mean looking as fuck, with a beard?”

Genji cocks his head.

“Beanie?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah, I think.”

“You’re probably thinking of the Blackwatch Commander, Gabriel Reyes. You two were close. You were in Blackwatch almost as long as it existed.”

“And that was the sneaky, undercover thing?”

“Pretty much sums it up.” Genji flicks the end of his cigarette out the window, half-finished. “Reyes passed away a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Jesse thinks that the news should have more of an effect. With only the vague impression he can currently conjure up, there’s not enough for grief. The only sense of loss he feels is loss of loss. He’s missing something, a lot of something, a connection to his own past. That’s the only thing he can appreciate enough to mourn.

“Feel better?” Genji asks.

The need to fidget and the sense of deep irritation is gone, though his throat feels dry and scratchy. He’s not sure how he feels about the trade, but certainly feels clearer and calmer than before.

He nods.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, there you are.”

Jesse looks up to see Winston. He pokes up at the corner of his glasses. It’s almost like a nervous tic, though Jesse can’t imagine what he’d ever have to be nervous about. 

“What can I do for ya?” Jesse asks.

“Well, I meant to give you this yesterday. We didn’t recover your old one, unfortunately.”

Winston hands him a phone. Jesse turns it over in his hands. It’s familiar, in the way his clothes and his utensils are, but he’s not entirely sure what to do with it.

“Hello, Agent McCree,” it chimes. Jesse frowns at it. “I am Athena, the AI for this facility. I am sorry to hear about your injury, and would be happy to assist in any way I can.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Jesse gives Winston a questioning look.

“Athena handles the security, communications, and general computation for us, but she’s a fully cognizant intelligence and an integral member of the team.”

“Then, pleased to make your acquaintance. Erm, again.”

“Likewise, Agent McCree. I’ve imported your previous settings, though you’ll need to set a new passcode.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Winston says.

 

* * *

 

Jesse isn’t expecting the knock at his door. He gets up from his desk, shuffling over to the keypad. He punches the button and the door slides open, revealing Fareeha. She looks like normal, tank top and athletic shorts and sandals, but her hair is pinned up away from her face and neck and she’s got a case of beer in one hand and her tablet in the other.

“Hey,” she says. “You busy?”

“Not really,” Jesse says, stepping aside and motioning her inside.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks. Her face scrunches a little, then she turns away to set the case down and dock her tablet to his desk.

“We, uh,” she rubs the back of her neck. “We have a tradition. Thing.”

She looks at him, as if she’s willing him to remember, and he tries not to bristle.

“Sorry, we don’t talk about it much. Just, well, we would watch shitty action movies together when you got back from assignments before. Whenever I was around anyway, I don’t know if you did it when I wasn’t there. And we kept doing now, just us. Like, as a little celebration.” She twirls her index fingers in the air near her head. “You know, _yay, we’re both not dead let’s make fun of something stupid together_. You loved ripping the effects apart.”

She looks awkward in the silence, suddenly young and a little ungainly, waiting for him to react. He’s struck by how much she wants her brother back. She’s clearly uncomfortable articulating her affection, but she’s meeting it head on in the hope it might help. He wishes he could remember all the movie nights they must have had, and wishes people would stop looking at him like that, and wishes this woman standing in front of him wasn’t staring at a ghost.  She seems like she deserves better.

“Let’s do it,” he says. She syncs her tablet to the display in his desk, then sets the beer on the floor and sits down crossways on his bed. She pulls two free from the cardboard and hands him one.

He sits down beside her and pulls the tab on the can. The flavor is mild, but faintly unpleasant. Fareeha starts the movie.

“You know, you gave me my first beer.”              

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was like fifteen. You just handed me one when we sat down and I opened it and took a giant swig.” She starts laughing at the memory. “I spit it right back out, all over the floor. You stared at me for a second and then just lost it. I don’t think you thought about me never drinking one before. You said _fuckin’ course it tastes like shit yer supposed to suck it up_.”

“I was brother of the year material, wasn’t I?”

Fareeha snorts.

“You were something. I never told Mom or Dad or anybody.” She turns, pokes him in the chest. “No snitching. That’s our rule.”

Jesse holds his hands up, palms out.

“No snitchin’, I got it.”

The movie plays. Fareeha laughs at things, pauses frequently to point out dialogue that doesn’t make sense. He’s not following exactly, but her good humor is infectious and the beers taste better the more he has. It’s nice, in its way. She’s not really asking much of him beyond that he be here.

That, at least, he can still do.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, half the residents of the Watchpoint load into a plane and leave. Jesse watches them go, the unfamiliar twist of anxiety curling through him. They tell him it’s only reconnaissance. He’s not sure he believes that. Look what happened to him on _reconnaissance._

Genji went, but Fareeha stayed behind. Together, they watch the ascent. Jesse waves, acting on some deeply buried instinct. Fareeha bumps his shoulder with her own once the plane is no more than a speck in the sky.

“C’mon. We ought to keep busy.”

“Did you have somethin’ in mind?” Jesse asks.

Fareeha frowns up at the sky, falling quiet for a moment. Jesse watches her think.  He can’t help but wonder if she has something else she should be doing besides babysitting him.

Finally, she snaps her fingers.

“We could get you back on the range. Maybe doing something familiar would help.”

“The gun range?”

“Yeah. Your aim—” She shakes her head. “It’s eerie.”

Well, he did have a revolver in his bunk. Stands to reason he knew how to use it.

“Well, lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

Somewhere along the way, they run into Hana. He had apparently been teaching her the finer points of pistol work, like he’d done for Fareeha years ago. She seems eager to return the favor.

“Okay just, it’s the trigger thing, isn’t it?” Hana squints down range, then looks at Fareeha. Fareeha is frowning and miming firing a pistol, clearly trying to think through it for herself.

“Unless he knocked the sight out of alignment,” Fareeha says. “Wait, no, that doesn’t sound like him.”

Jesse rests the gun on the bench while they talk. Downrange, the target is automatically switched out for a new one. He’s had a wide pattern, mostly grouped within the outermost ring. He thinks he’s doing everything they tell him, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. He was apparently much more accurate than that.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea. Athena, can you pull up footage of Jesse practicing?”

“One moment. Accessing. Here is the footage from the last training session before Agent McCree’s injury.”

A display flickers to life over the bench. Jesse sees himself in third person, three lanes down from where they’re standing. He fires all six shots in rapid succession, and then with fluid, efficient motions, reloads and fires another six. There’s a second video playing in the corner of the first, showing each bullet hitting a training droid in the center of its forehead. Twelve droids drop, half a dozen at a time.

“That’s me?”

“That’s you,” Fareeha answers. “Eerie, like I said.”

His recording turns to someone off screen, and his shoulders shake. Maybe a laugh. He reloads, and then shoots again, this time around his back. A droid drops. He fires again, and two droids drop, the bullet passing through one to go on and hit another. He lifts the gun in front of him and hits the hammer with the flat of his left hand in rapid succession, emptying the cylinder and dropping four more droids. He turns back to whoever he was speaking to, spinning the gun on his finger and holstering it.

Fareeha’s right, but that’s not really what’s gotten his attention. He wonders who else was in the range that day. His own posture is relaxed, body language inviting. He was smiling. Enjoying himself.

While he was wondering that, his hands reloaded his gun and his body turned back down range. He squeezes off six shots while trying to think through everyone he’s met so far. Maybe it was Hana? She said he’d been teaching her.  He’s not snapped from his thoughts until he hears Hana speak beside him.

“You’re _cheating_ ,” she groans.

He really looks downrange. There’s only one hole in the paper target this time, in the very center of the ten ring.

“Hah! There you go,” Fareeha says. “What was different?”

Jesse turns to her, open mouthed. He’d just _done it_. His body remembered how.

“I dunno, I just—I was thinking about somethin’ else, and it just happened.”

Fareeha just shakes her head.

“Mom always said you just had _it._ ”

Jesse reloads the gun and lets his body do what seems natural. Six more shots, all through the same hole in the paper. So long as he doesn’t try to think about, it just happens. The pungent scent of the gun smoke fills his nose. It’s not a good smell, but it’s, it’s—

_She whistles, low and long. The wind is cold, damp. It sucks the heat from his bones. He tries to bury himself deeper into his coat._

_“Hah! Jack can’t make that shot prone,” she says. “Try the next one.”_

_The bright orange circle of that target is another fifteen meters past the last one. Jesse shoulders the rifle again. The plastic stock is uncomfortable against his cheek. There’s another woman’s voice ringing clear in his mind._

Just look, _mijo_ , you know what to do.

                _He watches the sway of the grass in the field, listens to his heart beating in his ears, and exhales. His finger squeezes back._

_A hole opens in the target, a dark spot in the orange. Ana claps him on the shoulder._

_“You’re a natural.”_

“Jesse?” Fareeha says. He feels her fingertips on his shoulder.

“I—I think I remember her sayin’ that.”

Fareeha looks at him with sad eyes, and he turns away to reload the gun again.

“Where is she? Your mom, that is?” he asks.

Fareeha takes long enough to answer that Jesse turns back around. She looks gut-punched. Jesse opens his mouth to say something else, but she cuts him off.

“Killed in action. It was a few years ago,” she says stiffly. Jesse just nods, not sure what else to do. Hana looks uncomfortable on Fareeha’s other side. Jesse has to wonder if she already knew too. Another death that should mean something and doesn’t. Jesse clenches his teeth.

There’s less conversation after that.  

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Athena, you listenin’?”

“Hello, Agent McCree. I am.”

“Got a question for ya. That video you pulled up earlier, who else was in the range with me?”

“Agent Hanzo Shimada.”

Jesse frowns. Hanzo, really? He sits up a little straighter.

“Would you like me to send you more footage from that session?” Athena asks.

“Please and thank you.”

There’s a notification on his phone, directing him to a new file. He pokes it.

The camera angle is different, high and wide, from behind the firing lanes. He and Hanzo are talking. He’s grinning, and Hanzo has a small smile of his own. They posture at each other for a moment, then Hanzo picks up his bow and draws an arrow.

Here he thought he was the one with the trick shots. Hanzo does _something_ and the arrow arcs, catching a droid just before it comes out of cover. Hanzo turns to him, looking smug. He laughs, and then makes a shot of his own.

It goes on like that, the two of them showing off. He watches the same bit of footage from earlier, then Hanzo’s follow up. Whatever this is, it isn’t strictly professional; if they weren’t friends, they were at least friendly. Jesse frowns. It’s not as if Hanzo’s been unkind. He’s just, well, not especially present. Off minding his own business.

Jesse wonders if he misses having a shooting partner.

“Is that sufficient, Agent McCree?”

“Actually, is there more like this? Just, stuff about how I was? The dossier was kinda thin.”

“There is. I will push the files to your home directory, Agent McCree.”

Jesse opens the first file that completes—another report—and starts reading.

 

* * *

 

It’s not a nightmare that wakes him, not exactly. He feels unsettled but not afraid. He swallows, tries to put the already fading fragments into some kind of order. There was a voice in the darkness, familiar and soft and low. It said his name.

The dream felt more like a memory, but he can’t think of a single person who speaks to him that way. It was man’s voice, and it lacked the wheezy rasp of Genji’s. Maybe he fabricated it out of whole cloth, but it was so familiar.

Just one of those _fucking_ _things_ he doesn’t know anymore he supposes.

He tries to settle himself back into bed, but he knows he won’t get back to sleep. He wishes he knew what was wrong with the bed, why it seems comfortable until he tries to lie in it. It still takes him another half hour to truly give up, pull on clothes, and take to the halls again. He stuffs Hanzo’s cigarettes and lighter into his pocket, for when he finally gets back outside.

His phone buzzes in his pocket when he passes the mess. He pulls it out and punches in his passcode. There’s a new message icon at the top of the screen.

                **Athena** : I see you are having trouble sleeping. May I make a suggestion?

Jesse huffs. Athena does have eyes everywhere, so he shouldn’t be surprised she’s noticed. He guesses he ought to be grateful she waited to say something until she had a more private way of doing so.

                **Jesse McCree** : Shoot.

 **Athena** : If you are having trouble sleeping in your assigned bunk, perhaps a change of surroundings would help?

Jesse frowns at the screen. The hell is that supposed to mean?

                **Jesse McCree:** Mind explainin more?

                **Athena:** That is all I am at liberty to explain.

                **Jesse McCree:** Seriously?

                **Athena:** Quite.

Jesse shoves the phone back into his pocket. Probably the AI’s idea of a damn joke. He heads for a door he knows leads outside. He needs a smoke.

 

* * *

 

He feels a relief he wasn’t expecting when the Orca comes back into sight. He and Fareeha watch it land, the hot air buffeting them where they stand behind the line. The doors open, hydraulics groaning, and Hanzo is the first one out. He marches down the ramp, a frigid expression on his face.

And _oh hell_ his face. He’s got a split lip and a black eye. He freezes at the sight of them at the edge of the landing pad.

“McCree, Amari,” he says stiffly. Behind him, everyone else pours out. Genji’s face is covered by a helmet, but his body language is all nervous energy. Mei is looking around, eyes almost frantic in their darting. The rest seem to be trying very hard to not stare at the back of Hanzo’s head.

There’s heavy tension in the air. Jesse glances back at everyone else. They seem unharmed. It’s just Hanzo.

“ _Hanzo_ ,” Genji starts, but Hanzo cuts him off.

“That is quite enough,” he grits out. He darts away, vanishing through the door and into the Watchpoint.

Jesse looks back at the rest of the squad, trying to make sense of what he just saw. He guesses it’s been talked to death, or at least to the end of Hanzo’s patience, on the flight back, but still. He can’t help but wonder if it was another assassination attempt.

“What the hell happened out there? Didja have to abort again?” Jesse asks.

“We got what we needed,” Genji says. He sounds distracted and he’s staring at the door. Mei looks between him and his sister, almost pleading.

“He pushed me out of the way and then he was fighting two men, I don’t think they had anything to do with the target, and I’m not sure, they _did_ look like trouble but I didn’t even know they were there,” she blurts in one long breath. Then, in a squeak, “I think he broke one of their noses.”

“Muggers, he swears,” Genji adds.

“Are _you_ all right?” Jesse thinks to ask, a little late.

“Oh! Fine, fine. It was over before I even realized what was going on. And it was yesterday, anyway,” she says. “It’s just—his lip. And his eye!”

“Well, he insists he’s fine, and he’s the expert,” Genji says. His tone is a just a little too sharp for sarcasm. He lifts his right hand, massages his left shoulder. “We need to debrief, Mei, come on.”

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the day, Jesse is restless in a way the cigarettes don’t help. He doesn’t even try to convince himself to try to sleep for the first few hours that night, he keeps pouring through everything Athena gave him until he’s sure everyone’s at least in their bunks, and then he leaves. He wanders aimlessly for a while before eventually deciding to head for the kitchen. Maybe that tea of Hanzo’s would help.

He meets Hanzo in the hallway. Hanzo’s drenched in sweat, a towel hanging around his neck, dressed in loose pants and a tank top. He’s still flushed from exertion. The sight of him makes Jesse’s heart inexplicably skip a beat. He shouldn’t look appealing, hell, _better_ , and yet.

But Jesse looks closer. He swears there’s another bruise on his face, on his cheek this time. And he can’t say for sure, but it looks like the skin on his left forearm is raw and weeping. The knuckles on his right hand are sluggishly bleeding.

They just got back. What the hell has he been doing?

“Jesse?” Hanzo asks, faintly concerned.

“Your hand,” Jesse says lamely. Hanzo looks down at it, then takes the towel and dabs at the blood.

“It’s nothing.” Hanzo says with authority. Jesse supposes, in the grand scheme, it really isn’t. Hanzo glances back up at him. “Was there something—?”

“Uh, no.”

Jesse can’t help but stare at his hand. It upsets him. He doesn’t know why.

“Goodnight then, Jesse.”

 

* * *

 

_Jesse notices before he does. Jesse shoves him away, spinning back and lifting his left arm. There’s the sharp sound of metal on metal as Hanzo scrambles for his footing, drawing the knife in his sleeve. Jesse is wrestling with another man, one who’s armed with a sword._

_Shimada-gumi. Must be._

_Hanzo charges, but as he does, the assassin manages to shove Jesse off, sending him toppling backward. Hanzo sees him fall back into the corner of a nearby dumpster, hears the awful, wet crack of his skull on metal._

_Hanzo snarls, feints right and goes left, getting in close where the sword will be useless. He slashes with the knife, feels it connect with flesh. The man tries to bring his sword down, but Hanzo grabs his arm. They struggle there, locked together with teeth bared._

_This close Hanzo can he see his wild, panicked eyes, feel the heat of his breath. He is afraid for his life. Good. He should be._

_Hanzo twists the knife and pushes it deeper. The man drops the sword with a cry. Hanzo slaps his hand over the man’s mouth and pushes him into the wall, cracking_ his _skull against the unforgiving brickwork. He looks dazed, and Hanzo takes that opportunity to push him to the ground to get the leverage he will need to break the man’s neck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s Chekov’s fucking armory up in here and I am the quartermaster
> 
> I'm lurking and writing procrastination drabbles at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's unbeta'd, but I think I caught the worst of the mistakes

Jesse arrives right in the middle of breakfast this morning. Almost everyone is there, and there’s a tablet being passed around. He glances down at it as he walks by. It’s a list, though he can’t read any of it in passing. Fareeha gets up from the table and joins him at the counter.

“We’re putting together the requisition list,” she says. “If you wanted, I was planning to take you with me into the city tomorrow. Let you get a feel for the island.”

“Sounds good,” Jesse says. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to be beyond the confines of the Watchpoint until she suggested it, but maybe getting to roam a little farther would be a balm to his restlessness.

“We can get you some more of those awful cigarillos.”

Jesse shoots her a look, but she just elbows him and smiles.

“You still reek of smoke, you’re not fooling anyone, genius. Who hooked you up? It was Genji, wasn’t it?”

“No snitchin’.”

“That’s just us!” she laughs.

She prods him all the way back to the table, but doesn’t seem interested in the answer, only the game. Jesse tries to imitate Hana’s exaggerated look of innocence, but he doesn’t think it’s working. Fareeha doesn’t let up until an excited shout arrests the attention of the whole group.

“Hanzo! Hanzo, wait!” Mei calls. Hanzo pauses in the doorway, turning to face her with a look of faint surprise.

“What is it, Dr. Zhou?”

“I set aside some breakfast for you.”

She waves him in. He hesitates for the briefest moment, looking unsure, but then he walks smoothly into the mess. She hands him a covered plate, smiling widely but with her eyes trained on the bruise under his eye. If he notices, he doesn’t react.

“This was thoughtful, thank you very much,” Hanzo says. 

“Oh, it’s no problem!”

“I’ll just take this—”

“C’mon, Hanzo, stay,” Genji calls.

Hanzo freezes in place just long enough for it to seem unnatural, then he lowers himself into a chair. Mei goes and gets him a cup of tea from the kettle, and he murmurs his thanks.           

He doesn’t waste any movement when he eats. Jesse can’t tell if he’s enjoying his breakfast or not. Jesse had thought it was pretty good given his limited experience, but Hanzo eats so mechanically. Maybe whatever had caused him to pause is occupying his thoughts instead of the taste.

“At least he’ll listen to you, Mei,” Genji says. Jesse can’t tell if he meant for only her to hear or not. If he did, he was just a little too loud. Hanzo sets his chopsticks down with a loud click.

“I have heard everything you have to say, Genji,” he says. He doesn’t look at his brother. The whole room falls quiet, and everyone seems immediately preoccupied with looking anywhere but either brother. Jesse risks a glance at Genji. He’s chewing his bottom lip.  

“Hanzo,” Genji starts. But Hanzo immediately cuts him off with a single snarled word. It’s Japanese, but Jesse still catches it— _enough._

Hanzo stands and turns on his heel for the door. Genji follows after him, one hand stretched out and speaking quickly. He catches his brother in the hall, and their voices stay just shy of yelling, but only barely. Jesse’s reminded of the scene on the landing pad yesterday. He wonders what it is they haven’t managed to hash out in all that time flying back.

“Christ, haven’t had a meal like than in months and months,” Lena says softly. Jesse turns to her, eyebrow cocked. She winces. Other people are shooting her looks.

“Don’t worry about it, Jesse! It’s just, oh! Genji didn’t want us bringing it up, is all.”

“Lena!” Fareeha hisses.

“Sorry!” Lena says. “Please, don’t worry about it! I’m sure they’ll be fine!”

Jesse sighs and nods. Everyone is clearly uncomfortable with the topic, and, really, it’s Genji and Hanzo’s business. He wants to know, but he ought to find out from them.

Out in the hall, the _conversation_ goes on.  

    

* * *

 

Jesse swears if he looks at a screen anymore today, his eyes are going to roll out of his head from pure spite. He sets the tablet down and rubs them, then cracks his neck. He could go try to find someone to kill time with, but just the thought is exhausting. Instead, for lack of anything better to do, Jesse starts going through the contents of his desk.

There’s a half full packet of individually wrapped candies in the drawer to his left. He pulls one out and eats it, but it’s cloyingly sweet and coats the inside of his mouth with a deeply unpleasant aftertaste. _Why do I have these?_ he wonders as he shoves them back in the drawer.

He abandons that drawer for another. In this one is a small squareish box and a small stack of folded papers. He opens the box, which is only about as deep as his thumb, to find it contains a few worn photographs that smell strongly of tobacco.

He thumbs through the photos. He only recognizes about half the people pictured. He tucks them back into the box and picks up the papers. There’s a couple print outs of news articles, one form without any letterhead and a benign looking title about discharge, and an envelope. Jesse opens the envelope.

It’s a handwritten letter, on unlined paper, only one page long, and written in Spanish. The script is delicate and precise, easy to read. Jesse finishes it quickly.

Then he reads it again.

“Athena?”

“Yes, Agent McCree?”

“Where’s my sister?”

 

* * *

 

“I’m coming, I’m coming, Jesus,” Fareeha shouts. Jesse doesn’t stop pounding on her door until she opens it.

“What’s going on, Jess?” she asks, bewildered and a little annoyed. Jesse shoves the letter at her. She seems to recognize it immediately; her eyes go wide and she inhales sharply.

“The fuck is this?” he asks. She pulls him inside and shuts the door behind them.

“Athena, this is a private family conversation. No mics until Jesse leaves, okay?” she says.

“Acknowledged,” Athena’s voice chimes from both their phones.

Fareeha’s shoulders slump.

“Your mom’s _alive_?” Jesse says.

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you lie to me?”

Fareeha rubs her hand over her face before answering.

“Because no one else can know, Jesse, all right? She really did almost die, and as far as the world knows, she was killed in action. It’s a matter of life and death that everyone keeps believing that.”

“Who else knows?”

“You and me, as far as I know,” Fareeha huffs, almost like a laugh but utterly humorless. “She even told me not to tell my Dad. It’s been years since they were _together_ together, but still. She’s worried what could happen _to_ him.”

Fareeha folds her arms across her chest, tucking down her elbows. She looks _tired_. Jesse deflates. It still stings that Fareeha lied, but he supposes as reasons go she’s got a good one. Jesse thinks back to when he asked her the first time.

“Hana was there,” Jesse says.

“And Athena.”

“Does she know?” Jesse asks, gesturing at himself.

“Yeah. I’ve talked to her twice since you got hurt. Once to tell her you were in a coma, and once to tell her you’d woken up again. She’s relieved, by the way. And I think she wants to rip you a new one.”

Jesse’s lips quirk. He wishes he had more than a letter and a single dim memory. Mentions of her cropped up in the material Athena had given him about himself, and she seems like a remarkable woman.

“Do I talk to her much?”

“That’s between the two of you,” Fareeha says, shrugging. “She doesn’t tell me to make you call her, so—”

Jesse sighs and wonders, not for the first time, what the hell kind of life does he lead? All secrets and half-truths and blacked out documents. Who could live like that?

“Is there anything else?” he asks.

“Anything else what?”

“I dunno, any other secrets about me I should know.”

She stares at him for a long moment, her lips pressed into a tight line and her eyebrows tilted down. She licks her lips before speaking.

“Jesse, there’s a lot of stuff you never told me. Uncle Gabe, or Mom maybe, knew the most, but you kept so much to yourself. I know you hated your step-father. _Hated_ him. You were part of a gang when you were a teenager, and you’re ashamed of that. You lost your mom young. She’s—have you seen your back?”

Jesse nods, confused by the non sequitur. There are three tattoos on his back—an angel, a woman in a shawl, and person with a bird for a head.

“She’s the one in the middle. The others are _for_ Mom and Uncle Gabe, but that one’s from a picture of her you had.” She sighs. “I don’t know what to say, Jess. You’re a complicated person, but you’re my big brother.”

She’s looking at him with big, wet eyes. She looks _lost_ somehow. As off balance as he is, she must be feeling some measure of it herself.

“God, come here,” she says. She pulls him into a hug, tight and fierce. Like she’s trying to prove something by how tight she can hold him. He hugs her back, just as tight.

When she lets him go, she scrubs both her hands down her face and laughs. She sounds relieved, in a way. He huffs, rubbing the back of his head.

“That’s like, the most emotional talk we’ve had since I was sixteen.”

“What happened when you were sixteen?”

Fareeha groans.

“Ugh, there was this girl, okay— _don’t laugh._ ”

 

* * *

 

“That is not a good face, my friend,” Genji says, drifting up beside him. “What’s the matter?”

Jesse flicks the cigarette butt over the railing and grimaces. It’s not like he can tell Genji about the revelation from earlier, and he doesn't want to lie.

“Maybe it’s just my face,” Jesse replies.

Genji laughs and slaps him on the shoulder.

“Maybe so. Luckily for you, I’ve got just the distraction.” Genji reaches up and pulls two handfuls of his hair apart, exposing the black roots. “You’re my designated hair dye bitch. No complaining.”

“Oh, and how’d that happen?” Jesse asks, crossing his arms. Might as well pretend to play tough and give Genji a hard time.

“I saved your life, probably. _C’mon_. The bleach is hard on my hand.” Genji wiggles all the fingers on his right hand for emphasis.

Jesse almost points out that he’ll have the exact same problem, but there is a marked difference in their prosthetics, and not just in magnitude. Jesse’s looks like a piece of construction equipment. Genji’s are much more streamlined and made of something entirely different. He wonders if the excuse holds any water, or if Genji just wants the help, or if this is just some old call and response they used to share.

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Jesse huffs. Genji shoos him back inside, practically dragging him to his own bunk.

It’s inexplicably cramped in Genji’s bunk, though it shouldn’t be any smaller than the others. It probably has something to do with all the clothes littering the floor. It’s a haphazard mix of soft loungewear and neon abominations. Jesse picks up one t-shirt, emblazoned with a hat much like his own.

“You gave that to me,” Genji says, earnestly. Just a little too earnestly, maybe.

Genji tosses two boxes at him in quick succession, and he has to drop the shirt to catch them before they hit him in the face. Both are hair dye—one is called _Limelight_ and the other _Fish Bowl_. Green and blue.

“Which one?”

Jesse grunts, confused.

“I’m leaving my fate in your hands and all you can do is grunt?” Genji flops dramatically into a chair, laying one arm over his eyes. Jesse chucks one box at him, catching him in the chin. Genji yelps, then laughs.

“Okay, green it is. A wise choice. I’ve always looked good in green.”

Genji scoops a shirt off the floor, one that’s dotted with neon patches around the neck and shoulders, and pulls it over his head. He trots into the bathroom, and Jesse trails behind, leaning against the wall just outside. It’s not really big enough for two grown men to easily fit.

Every flat surface in Genji’s bathroom is covered with tubes and bottles. Most look half empty. Genji hands him a pair of gloves and cracks open a different box, pouring everything inside into a small bowl and mixing with a brush.

“So?” Genji says.

“So, what?”

“So, what’s up with you? This is a weird fucking place, and you have to want to know more.”

Genji smears something shiny around his hairline and over his ears. He makes faces in the mirror, trying to judge the job he did.

“Dunno,” Jesse says, shrugging. He doesn’t have a frame of reference. His best friend is a cyborg and a talking gorilla runs this operation, and _that_ was his day-to-day life. What the hell is normal, anyway?

“Okay, you just, just paint this on,” Genji says, handing him the brush and the bowl. Genji sits backwards on the toilet. Jesse forgets Genji’s question for trying to apply the bleach to all his hair. It’s short, but it’s thick, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up.

“Seriously?” Genji asks, picking back up the thread of conversation. He makes a flippant gesture, but his head remains perfectly still. “There’s got to be something.”

Jesse shrugs, even though Genji can’t see.

“There’s a lot, but—”

“Too much?”

“Yeah, I guess. Think I’m done here.”

Genji hums, considering. He pulls his phone out of his pants pocket and sets a timer, then gets up.

“I guess, well, what was Blackwatch like?” Jesse asks.

“Not fucking around, huh?” Genji laughs. He taps his chin with one finger. “In a word? Rough.”

“Rough?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, you seemed used to it though. I sure as shit hadn’t ever taken a hint before then, let alone an order.” Genji laughs softly, shaking his head. “Reyes did what no one else ever could.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Scared the shit out of me. He was—” Genji leans forward and flexes both his arms, frowning grimly.  “And he was smart, no, _cunning_. You just couldn’t fuck with him. He was ten steps ahead of everyone, all the time. This one time—”

Genji launches into an animated story about a prank of theirs gone wrong, which leads to another story, and then his timer beeps. He ducks back into the bathroom to wash out the bleach. When he returns his hair is almost white and he’s shaking the box of green dye.

“Okay, here’s the fun part.”

He fairly tears the box apart. He mixes the contents into the bowl from earlier, but hands him a different brush. He sits back on the toilet and lets Jesse work, seemingly unconcerned than an amnesiac is working on his hair. Jesse wonders if Genji would notice if Jesse only did the dye in stripes before it was too late, but decides against it. Genji seems like he wouldn’t hesitate to get him back.

“What was that with your brother this mornin’”?”

Genji tenses. It would be easy to miss, but Jesse didn’t. He keeps working, waiting for Genji to either respond or change the subject.

“It’s an old argument, you could say.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Jesse steps back. That’s about as covered as he thinks he can manage. Genji checks in the mirror, and seems to approve. Jesse thinks that’s the end of the conversation, but Genji sighs and turns back to him.

“He and I haven’t been close in a long time. We’re better, but we’re not _good_ good. There’s a lot of baggage I’d rather just leave in the past, but just when I think he’s moving on—” Genji sighs, throwing one hand up.

“Uh, sorry to bring it up then.”

Genji shrugs, pulls his phone out, and starts another timer.

“You don’t remember. Can’t be helped.”

 

* * *

 

At this time of morning, the red strip lighting in the floor mirrors the faint pre-dawn light outside. Jesse woke from a dream feeling _odd._ It was the voice, just a lone impression of someone saying his name. It’s infuriating he has nothing else, nothing he could describe to Fareeha or Genji. It could be his imagination or it could be a ghost of a memory, but either way it haunts him.

He worries the top of the box of cigarettes in his pocket. He’s almost out, but Fareeha did promise she’d take him into the city. That’ll be this afternoon. He can last that long.

He glances into the mess out of habit, though he isn’t expecting anyone. Who’d want breakfast at half past four in the morning, anyway? So it takes him by surprise when he sees a shadow at the back, blotting out a swatch of light from under the cabinets. Jesse squints, trying to see who it is.

“Hanzo?”

Hanzo, and it is Hanzo, makes a strangled noise, freezing in place. Jesse leans through the door to get a better look at him. He’s holding a bowl, and there’s a spoonful of ice cream halfway to his mouth. He’s staring back at Jesse with wide, startled eyes.

“That’s some breakfast,” Jesse says. Hanzo stiffens, pulling himself up to his full height, like he isn’t eating ice cream at dawn. Behind him the kettle starts whistling. Jesse smiles, a little in spite of himself.

“It’s dinner,” Hanzo says, and lifts the spoon to his mouth, then turns to tend to the kettle with it still between his lips. Jesse saunters up to the counter. Since he’s here, coffee sounds good. He pulls out the tin and makes it the way Reinhardt showed him. At the other end of the counter, Hanzo measures out tea, just like Genji did.

“You take that with honey too?”

Hanzo turns to look at him, faintly appalled. “No, no. That wouldn’t—”

“Okay, okay,” Jesse says, holding up his hands. He thinks it should annoy him, like it usually does when he gets something wrong, but this doesn’t feel quite the same. A more honest mistake, perhaps.

Hanzo wrinkles his nose. He looks remarkably like Genji when he does it. For all the differences between them, they still share a few little things like that. Jesse almost mentions it, but decides against it. If Genji is cagey, then there’s no telling what Hanzo would do.

Coffee begins dripping into the carafe, the pungent smell drifting up. Coffee smells better than it tastes, but Jesse finds himself craving a cup every day. It just feels _right_. He likes the way the warmth from the mug bleeds into his fingers and the way it warms him from the inside.

The bowl and spoon clink together softly as Hanzo finishes his _dinner_ and then he turns to wash away the evidence. He puts away the bowl and spoon, probably exactly back where he found them. Jesse pulls two mugs out of the cabinet and hands Hanzo one. He starts to pour himself a cup of coffee, but he pauses.

“Mind if I try that?” he asks. Hanzo looks bemused.

“Not at all.”

Jesse pours a little out of the teapot. It’s a pale, golden liquid, with a faint fragrance. He takes a tentative sip, but winces immediately. Hanzo is starting at him with polite blankness.

“I suppose, if you really wanted, you _could_ put honey in it.”

“That just makes it worse, don’t it?”

Hanzo’s lips quirk up at the edges, just barely exposing his teeth, and mischief glints in his eyes.

“Maybe.”

“I’ll stick to coffee, thanks,”

“You _can_ put honey in that as well.”

“When did you get funny, I wonder.”

Hanzo scoffs, but for just the barest instant, Jesse catches sight of a real smile. He’s stunning when he smiles. Jesse immediately misses it when it’s gone. He hides his disappointment by lifting a full cup of coffee to his lips and taking a long sip. Silence falls between them. Unlike the other night, it’s not tense. Still, he feels a twinge in his chest, and remembers the cigarettes in his pockets and the reason he’d come this way.

“Hey, I was gonna smoke. You want one? Since they’re yours anyway.”

Hanzo presses his lips together, considering, then nods. They walk over to the door and he slides it open. Jesse set his mug down on the railing and pulls the worn box out of his pocket. There's exactly two left. Just enough.

He hands Hanzo one and holds out the lighter, already lit. Hanzo leans forward, cigarette already between his lips. The tiny light throws his cheekbones into stark relief, making him look more severe. When he leans back,  with smoke curling around his face, he instead looks like something ethereal, unreal thing.

Jesse lights his own to keep from staring, and turns to face the water. There’s a bank of clouds on the horizon, dark in the thin dawn light. They sit like an impression of a wave, low on the water, the tops tinged pink. The wind kicks up and Jesse shivers. The humidity gives it bite. Hanzo makes a small inquisitive noise beside him, both eyebrows lifted up.

“Think it’s going to storm?” Jesse asks.

“Maybe,” Hanzo hums. Flicks the ashes off the end of his cigarettes. “I hope so.”

“Really?”

“I enjoy watching the storms here.”

Hanzo shrugs. Jesse wonders if he already knew that. It’s so hard to tell with Hanzo, he never seems to feel the need to bring up anything Jesse used to be. Jesse remembers the video from the range and takes another drag. He decides he must have.

They watch the water together for a few easy minutes. Jesse finishes his coffee. Hanzo finishes his cigarette and rubs out the end on the ground. He stretches up, both hands over his head, until something cracks and he sighs.

“Hey, you know, if you like sweets, I found this bag of candy in my desk.” Jesse shakes his head. He wishes he could forget the memory of the taste in exchange for something he’s forgotten. “You can have ‘em if you want. They don’t suit me anymore.”

Hanzo stares at him. It’s an expression Jesse can’t name, but it makes his breath catch in his throat. He thinks he must have said something wrong. He doesn’t know how, but he must have said something wrong.

“That’s very kind of you, Jesse. Excuse me.”

And just like that, he vanishes through the door.

 

* * *

 

When he and Fareeha get back from the requisition run, Jesse begs off immediately after unloading. He felt confident on his way here, but now he’s found himself puttering in front of the door for longer than is excusable. Hell, if _he_ can hear he’s probably half way to barging out and telling Jesse off. Jesse sighs and knocks.

He doesn’t hear any footsteps before the door slides back. Hanzo is frowning and there’s a leery edge to it. His eyebrows draw closer together and his mouth opens just a bit when he sees Jesse. His expression does something complicated, and then it smooths into politely neutral. He glances down the hallway, then steps out of the door, letting it close behind him.

“Yes, Jesse?”

“I, uh, got you these.” Jesse pulls a new box of cigarettes and a lighter out of his back pocket. The cigarettes are the same brand as the ones Hanzo lent Jesse. They were a bitch and a half to track down too. Hanzo stares at Jesse, wide eyed and wary, for a long moment. It makes Jesse nervous, the way it feels like Hanzo is trying to see inside him.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Hanzo says softly. He looks away from Jesse’s face and down to his hands instead.

“Yeah, well, didn’t seem right to make off with all your shit.” Jesse holds his arm out a little further. Hanzo takes the cigarettes and lighter with both hands, then dips the top half of his body in a quick bow.

“Thank you, Jesse,” he says.

“Wasn’t nothing,” Jesse mumbles. Hanzo gives him one long, strangely intense look again, before retreating into his room. Jesse’s left in the hallway by himself again, feeling adrift.

He thinks he needs a cigarette of his own.

 

* * *

 

Jesse looks at the time on his phone. Genji said he’d be there in five mintes, ten minutes ago. Jesse supposes he could just go on to the mess, he _knows_ how to get there, but well. That seems rude over just five minutes. Maybe Genji’s still in his own room.

Jesse gets up and goes to the door, but he pauses with his finger over the button. He hears something in the hallway. Like someone banging on something. Jesse presses his ear against the door, concentrating on the voice. He thinks it might be Genji. The banging continues. He can barely hear, and he only picks up a few words, none of them particularly illuminating. Must be Japanese he’s hearing.

There’s a faint rumbling as a door slides back into its housing somewhere nearby, and the sound of a second voice joins Genji’s, this one lower. Sounds like his brother. Jesse can’t pick out any of the words, but even through the door the tones are unmistakable. They’re arguing, both angry this time. He listens as the voices rise into shouting, then stop abruptly.

Jesse steps away from the door, and begins to putter around his room, putting on a show of _definitely not eavesdropping_ for the empty room. A knock comes at his door, and the rushes to open it. Genji’s standing there, smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Hey, you ready?”

“Yeah, course.”

Jesse steps through the door to join him, and glances discreetly down the hall as they walk. Hanzo’s door is shut tight. Genji doesn’t try to make conversation, and Jesse doesn’t either. He’s too busy wondering what that was about. What it’s been about.

They turn into the mess, where everyone else is puttering around. It smells like one of Lucio’s dishes is on the menu. He seems to have a knack for cooking for a crowd.

“Hey, Genji, where’s Hanzo?” Hana calls.

“Not feeling well, I’m afraid.”

Jesse doesn’t let himself react to that. That doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing you shout at your brother over, but why would he lie?

“What!” Her expression falls. “Aw, really? He promised to show me how flip someone.”

Genji snorts, shaking his head.

“I’ll show you. I’m better at it anyway,” he says slyly, winking at her. Hana cocks an eyebrow, skeptical.

“You better. I’ll hold you to it.”

Genji laughs, but something seems off about it. His smile still doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s something going on with him. Something he probably should understand, and doesn’t.

Jesse tries not to let it eat at him.

 

* * *

 

Jesse finds himself wandering again after dinner, outside this time. At least it’s a nice night, as Hanzo’s storm never materialized. He looks up at the stars when he doesn’t need to mind his steps. They’re hazy, but there’s still a few bright ones. They’re uncomplicatedly beautiful.

He’s caught completely off guard when he almost trips over someone.

“Hanzo, what the hell?”

Hanzo’s sitting on the walkway, pressed against the wall, with a bottle in his hand. He scowls up at Jesse, affronted.

“Excuse you,” he says, surly. As if Jesse is intruding. Jesse huffs and shakes his head.

“What’re you doing up here?”

Hanzo shakes the bottle. That counts as an explanation, though not a particularly good one. Jesse sits down beside him, kicking his legs out in front and leaning back.

“You can’t drink indoors, with cups?”

“I’m _hiding_.”

“From what?” Jesse prods.

“Genji made objections.”

So that’s what that was about. Jesse worries his bottom lip. He feels way out of his depth.

“And I found Genji’s objections hypocritical, so I ignored them.”

“And then you came up here.”

“I don’t wish to endure any more hypocritical lectures,” Hanzo says very seriously. Then he hiccups. He frowns, somehow looking both more stern and endearing at the same time. “And he knows where I sleep.”

Jesse laughs at that. He thinks about pointing out that everybody knows where everybody sleeps, but holds his tongue. Hell, he might try to sleep out here instead and catch a cold.

“Okay, well, what are we drinkin’?”

“Sake.”

Hanzo shrugs. The bottle hangs loosely from his fingers. His knuckles are still purple, with new splits over the old ones.

“Let me have a sip,” Jesse asks.

Hanzo gives him a strange look and shakes his head.

“It’s wasted on you. It’s never suited your tastes. Like the tea.”    

“I wanna try it anyway!” Jesse makes a swipe at the bottle and pulls his hand back with it firmly in his grip. Hanzo grabs at it, but he’s too uncoordinated and fails.

“Fine. You don’t like it,” Hanzo huffs, crossing his arms.

“How do you know what I like anyway?”

Hanzo doesn’t answer, just narrows his eyes. Jesse takes a long pull right from the bottle, but ends up sputtering. He had no idea what he was expecting, but it wasn’t _that_. He hears Hanzo making a choking noise beside him. He glances over, and Hanzo has his bottom lip clenched between his teeth, somehow managing to look smug while trying not to laugh.

“I _told_ you, now give it back.”

Hanzo reaches across him to grab for the bottle, practically climbing into his lap. Jesse doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hanzo get this close to anyone. It must be the alcohol. In spite of his better sense, Jesse lets him take the bottle back. Hanzo pulls it to his chest, but he doesn’t immediately push himself away like Jesse expects. Instead, for the space of a few seconds, Hanzo stares into his eyes, like he’s looking for something. His expression is open, lips parted slightly, like he wants to speak. His eyes are two pieces of night, glittering with what little ambient light there is. He really is striking.

He backs off slowly, his expression slipping back into that blankness Jesse usually associates with him. Except, and maybe it’s just a trick of the light, now it seems sad. Hanzo settles himself back against the wall and looks away. He lifts the bottle to his lips, takes a long pull.

“So, what’s this about Genji bein’ a hypocrite?” Jesse asks. Hanzo looks back to him, lips pressed into a thin line and eyebrows knitted together.

“Genji used to be one to _over-indulge_. Almost nightly.” Hanzo sighs, scrubs his fingers through his beard, then mutters. “I haven’t thrown up on _his_ shoes yet, I don’t see what the problem is.”

Jesse barks a laugh out of sheer surprise. It’s so frank and unguarded. He feels like he’s getting a true glimpse of Hanzo. Hanzo whips his head to face Jesse again and looks faintly embarrassed.

“You got any stories on him? I’m findin’ myself at a disadvantage lately.”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Hanzo says, with far more conviction than Jesse thinks the question warranted. Something chilly settles into the air between them. Jesse’s pushing up at the edge of something, one more of those things these people don’t talk about. He sighs.

“Sorry,” Jesse mutters.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” Hanzo says.

“I just—” he gestures vaguely at himself. “Keep pissin’ you off.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Hanzo snaps. He reaches out and grabs Jesse by the forearm. Jesse can’t help but look down at the point of contact. He’s holding on so tight his knuckles are white where they were purple. “You are not at fault. It’s me, if it’s anyone. I was supposed to be watching out for you. Protecting you.”

Jesse covers his hand with his own. He still viscerally doesn’t like the sight of the damage on Hanzo’s hands.

“It’s not like you meant for it to happen,” Jesse says.

 _“No_ ,” Hanzo says emphatically. He pulls his hand back. “No. Never that.”

Hanzo takes another drink. It makes Jesse sad in a way he can’t explain. He doesn’t like the idea of Hanzo chasing oblivion up here alone.

He gets an idea.

“Hey, uh, so this is embarrassin’, but I got lost gettin’ up here.”

Hanzo scowls at him, a little suspicious if Jesse’s any judge, but he starts to get to his feet. He sways, and Jesse scrambles upright to steady him. Jesse gets the bottle again—nearly empty—and drains it to do away with the temptation. Hanzo bats him in the chest, probably admonishment, but Jesse just waggles his eyebrows and grins.

“It’s this way,” Hanzo mutters. He says something else Jesse doesn’t quite catch, but it sounds insulting. Jesse did just steal the last of his sake, so he figures he deserves it.

Hanzo leads him through the Watchpoint, swaying and stumbling the whole way. He keeps bumping into Jesse, but Jesse can’t say he minds. Hanzo’s path in an unfamiliar one, and Jesse starts paying close attention, just in case it’s Hanzo who’s actually lost.

Hanzo turns abruptly and presses one hand over Jesse’s mouth, while pressing one finger over his own. He hisses softly and tilts his head toward a doorway. When they pass through, Jesse recognizes the barracks, though from the opposite end. Hanzo’s door is the nearest. He punches in his code, but hesitates at the threshold. He looks up at Jesse with a strange expression.

“Yours is down there,” he murmurs. Jesse nods.

Jesse feels eyes on his back until his own door shuts behind him.

 

* * *

 

_Hanzo leads them down a side street. He’d taken care to get a feel for the layout of this neighborhood, and in doing so saw a small park marked on the map. It’s not, strictly speaking, on the way to the only grocery in walking distance, but it won’t take them far off course. They would have had to take an indirect route regardless, to keep from establishing any patterns._

_That’s all the pretense Hanzo needs to divert them through the park, to wring a little more time alone for the two of them. He can’t wait to get back to that big, empty Watchpoint, with all of its lonely places. It’s easy to be alone with each other there._

_Jesse doesn’t comment on the direction. He’s keeping an eye on their surroundings, Hanzo knows. There’s a part of Hanzo that’s doing the same, that’s always doing the same, but there’s also a small part that’s relishing being some anonymous man and his partner, able to do something as mundane as running an errand together._

_What a strange thing to long for._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh now we're getting to the good bits
> 
> Come say hi at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >.> still no betaing

The days turn into weeks. Memories trickle back, a little at a time. He remembers good things—

          _The party they’d thrown when he’d earned his first promotion. He’d drunk himself sick, but that was the first time he’d felt like he was a part of a family since he’d lost his mama—_

_His mama signing songs with him, loud and off key and enthusiastic, silly kid’s songs, all in her native Spanish. Her singing voice wasn’t the best, but she never let it stop her—_

_The first time Gabe had told him he was proud of the man Jesse had become, years after he’d brought Jesse in and years before Jesse would leave. He said it, almost offhand as they were returning their gear to the quartermaster, and clapped him on the shoulder—_

And he remembers bad things, things he wishes would have stayed forgotten—

_The first time he saw Gabe get hurt, really hurt. Gabe was always in charge, always the boss, and he was stronger than most men, but he could still bleed like the rest of them—_

_His mama’s funeral. It was just him, the priest, and his fuckin’ step-daddy. He was pretty sober, his step-daddy, more sober than he’d been in years. Sobered up enough to put his mama in the ground, but he never could fuckin’ sober up to help her while she was still alive—_

_His arm just stopped. No elbow, no hand, just raw, pulped meat and pain. He didn’t know where his squad was, didn’t know if any of them were even still alive. He thought he was gonna bleed out there, in the cold dirt, but he didn’t. Maybe one day, but not right then—_

And he makes new memories to go along with the old. Hana teaches him to play a new game with her, Lena, and Lucio (he’s quite bad, but he has fun). He and Fareeha spend hours in the kitchen trying to recreate one of his secret recipes (the smoke alarm goes off twice, but they still end up with a giant pot of damn good chili). Genji talks him into spending a few hours in quietude with him and his teacher (Jesse isn’t good at sitting still, but Zenyatta is a fascinating person to talk to).

But, privately, he truly treasures the moments he spends with Hanzo. They keep crossing paths at odd hours, spending a few quiet minutes together before separating again. Hanzo never grows more talkative, but he lets Jesse just _be_. Jesse has a fondness for everyone else that grows deeper with every new thing he remembers, but for all that they mean the best, they exhaust him in a way Hanzo doesn’t.

He often wonders whether they spent this much time together before. He’d found a few more videos from the range in the files Athena had given him, all similar. They seemed to have had a friendly rivalry, perhaps genuine friendship. But whatever it was, it doesn’t compel Hanzo to press. Even, and perhaps it’s just Jesse’s imagination, if it seemed like he’d wanted to that night on the walkway.

Speaking of, they’re watching the sun set together in the same spot. It’s got lovely views, and Jesse finds himself drawn to it. So does Hanzo, it seems. Tonight, the dying light paints the sky in vivid reds and oranges, turns the thin clouds streaking the sky a bruised purple. Jesse brought the bottle of whiskey from his bunk for them to split. It’s smooth and just a little smoky. Words Hanzo had used to describe it, Jesse had simply deemed it _good_.

“Saw the doc this mornin’. She was pleased with the progress I’m makin’,”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. She said I might always be missin’ time around the accident, but I might get most everythin’ else back at this rate.”

“How much time?” Hanzo asks. There’s something in the timbre of his voice. Jesse wants to call it hopeful, but that’s probably just wishful thinking. Jesse shrugs and takes a sip.

“Few months? Weeks? Days? She wasn’t sure.”

Hanzo doesn’t respond. Jesse gives him a moment, but he finally glances over to him when the silence begins to drag. He can see the muscles in Hanzo’s jaw jumping, though otherwise his expression is neutral. He turns to face him fully, setting his glass down on the railing.

“What is it? Something happen then?”

Hanzo shakes his head. Lifts his own glass to his lips, then turns to look at Jesse. Usually, it makes Jesse’s heart skip a beat when Hanzo smiles, but not this time. This time it’s not quite right. It’s missing something in the eyes.

“No, nothing. That’s great news. I’m happy for you, Jesse.”

 

* * *

 

All that reconnaissance wasn’t for nothing. At three in the morning, most of the Watchpoint loads into the Orca. Jesse helps where he can. Winston won’t let him go—and frankly, Jesse doesn’t blame him—but he can still carry crates into the hold.  Someone claps Jesse on the shoulder. He turns to see Genji standing just behind him.

“We’ll be back in a few hours at most,” he says.

“Yeah, Winston said.”        

“So, you better have drinks ready. Jager bombs. I know you remember Jager bombs.”

Jesse snorts.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll get right on that.”

Genji laughs, shaking him.

“Seriously. It’s going to be in and out. Easy.”

Jesse remembers _easy_ ops. No such thing, not really. He also remembers the comfort of that lie. And he remembers working with Genji. He trusts him to come back, to bring everyone back with him.

Jesse follows Genji out of the hold. He wishes everyone else good luck, tells them to be careful. They’re solemn, full of nervous energy, but they’re also ready. Even he can see that. He watches the Orca take off, disappearing immediately into the dark night sky.

Jesse swears to himself he’ll get back into fighting shape soon.

 

* * *

 

Jesse paces back and forth in his bunk. Fareeha had a point last time, he should have tried to keep busy, but he can’t find it in him to focus on anything but his worry. They’re going to disrupt a theft, but he didn’t get the specifics.

He’s not sure if the specifics would make him feel better or worse.

His phone pings from his pocket, and he pulls it out. When he does, Athena’s voice chimes softly from its speaker.

“Agent McCree, you seem distressed. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just worried about them.”

“I cannot relay details of a mission in progress as a matter of security, but I can assure you everyone is currently well. I can reaffirm this on a recurring basis, if you would like.”

“Yeah. Yeah, if it’s not too much.”

“Not at all. It is only the work of a few CPU cycles.”

He receives her first message almost immediately:

 **Athena:** Mission in progress. No casualties.

Athena keeps her promise. Every five minutes, on the dot, he gets a new message, and it’s the same thing, over and over. It’s the best he could ask for.

He almost jumps out of his skin when she sends him a different message hours later, but it’s just confirmation that the team has begun their return trip. Still no causalities. Mission success. Jesse blows out a long sigh and presses the phone to his forehead.

“Thank god,” he mumbles.

“You have not eaten yet. You should not skip meals. You have also missed several hours of sleep. This is a pattern with you.” After a moment she adds, rather tersely, “This is a pattern with several of you.”    

Jesse stares at the phone. Did she really say that?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss.”

“Oh, I have a hard time believin’ that.”

“I take matters of privacy very seriously, Agent McCree. I have access to a wealth of personal data, and with it a trust I must not compromise, excepting imminent threat to life. The least I can do is obey the letter of my promises to my agents.”

Jesse huffs. Explains her fits of cageyness, he supposes. At least she has a reason.

“See to your own needs, Agent McCree. I will message you when they are close.”

 

* * *

 

Early in the afternoon, as promised, Athena messages him that the Orca is back in their airspace. She is already on the landing pad with her hatch open when Jesse makes it outside. As he trots up, he first hears rather than sees his comrades.

Genji’s voice carries, shrill with synthetic tones where his helmet and respirator make up for his usual lack of volume. Jesse picks up the pace. Had Athena been wrong about the casualties?

Hanzo stands like a stone in the midst of Genji’s onslaught, his entire posture tight like his bowstring. He doesn’t say a word back, not to anything Genji says. Jesse can tell Genji is getting more and more agitated at Hanzo’s lack of reaction, even without being able to see his face.

Jesse stops at the bottom of the ramp, looking from person to person as they exit.

“What’s happenin’? Athena said everythin’ was okay.”

“Everyone’s on their feet,” Fareeha says, frowning. “But from the yelling, I’d say Hanzo is up to it again.”

“Up to it?”

“Boy’s a damn martyr,” Torbjörn says, almost offhand. Jesse frowns, but that seems to be all the explanation there is. He glances back at the brothers. Hanzo’s posture is still rigid. Genji is leaning in closer now, right in his face.

Everyone else seems to be trying very hard to ignore the brothers. Jesse notices Lena standing just outside of the cockpit, looking faintly ill. He walks over to her.

“You okay?” he asks.

“He saved my life,” Lena says softly. “My accelerator to a hit and was on the fritz, and they were trying to run me down. He came out of absolutely nowhere and shot the forward hoverpads out. The car veered and crashed instead of hitting me. It clipped him going by.”

Jesse looks back to the brothers. Genji is still yelling. The stiff way Hanzo is holding himself might be pain instead of pride, but it’s impossible to tell from here. Zenyatta breaks away from the group, striding over to the argument. It’s faster than Jesse has seen him move to date, but there’s still something measured about his movements. He touches Genji’s elbow, and he abruptly shuts up, twisting to look back at his teacher. Zenyatta tips his head forward and says something softly to Genji. Hanzo frowns at whatever he says, the most reaction he’s shown so far, but doesn’t comment on it.

Zenyatta inclines his head to Hanzo and tugs Genji gently toward him, then releases his elbow. Genji stares, presumably he’s staring, at Hanzo for another moment before following. Hanzo watches them both leave, then walks off, disappearing around the corner of an outbuilding.

 

* * *

 

He and Fareeha have a tradition, and he intends to honor it. He assembles a six pack from a few loose bottles in the fridge and brings his fifth of good whiskey just in case and knocks at her door. She seems surprised at first, but he lifts the beer up into her line of sight and she breaks into a wide grin and waves him inside.

She picks the movie again, but Jesse can’t say he much minds. He opens two beers, popping the caps off with his left thumb, and hands her one.

“Cheers, Jess.”

“Cheers.”

Something tight in his chest unwinds as the movie plays. Everyone came back all right. Well, pretty much. He takes a pull from the bottle and wonders about Hanzo. He was walking around under his own power, and that has to count for something.

Jesse wonders what he’s doing right now.

Before the end of the movie, Fareeha slumps over onto his shoulder, colloquially speaking, passed the hell out. Jesse plucks the bottle out of her hand and sets it aside so it won’t spill. She’s been up for hours and hours at this point; it’s no wonder she’s tired. Jesse waits until the credits roll, and then he nudges her awake.

“Bedtime, kid.”

“I’m goddamn in my thirties. I don’t have a bedtime,” she grumbles, but when he gets up, she flops face down onto the bed.

“Want me to tuck you in?”

“ _Go away_.”

Jesse chuckles and leaves her be.

 

* * *

 

Jesse lurches upright, pure terror animating him. He can’t catch his breath, he can’t see anything around him, he can’t find his gun. He’s got to get _out_ because, because—

He looks around, really looks. He’s in his bunk. He can still hear the gunfire, smell the death, feel the fear, but it was only a nightmare.  

He takes a long shuddering breath. He’s safe, safe as a man like him can be anyway, in the Watchpoint. He looks at the clock on his phone. Just past midnight. He’d only just gotten to sleep.

So much for that.

He swings his legs to the floor and goes to the bathroom. He splashes lukewarm water on his face and leans over the sink. This is the downside to remembering. There was a lot in his past to haunt a man in the lonesome dark.

He tugs on some clothes and grabs his cigarillos. This isn’t a restlessness they’ll soothe, but he still wants the option.

Jesse wanders the halls, letting his feet take him wherever they please. The hallways are dim, lit only by the red strip lighting in the floors. These halls look sinister tonight, cold and unwelcoming.  It’s a different kind of unease than the nightmare, impersonal and unfeeling. To think he’s spent most of his life in halls like these.

Maybe, all this time, he just didn’t want to remember.

Jesse rounds a corner, and there’s white light leaking into the hallway. He’s made it to the far side of the complex, where the training rooms are set up. He walks toward the light, curious as to what could be happening in there at this time of night. He looks through the thick polycarbonate window in the door to Room B. Someone is running a training session.

He sees the bots roaming the floor, weaving in and out of sight in the maze. Fareeha said this room is meant to replicate an urban environment with its rambling cover and blind corners. The bots he can see have been outfitted with articulated arms instead of the normal non-lethal stun guns. Across the room, he catches sight of another person.

It’s Hanzo, creeping around a corner. He’s unarmed and sneaking up on a bot, slinking along the wall behind it. He leaps the moment he’s in range, hitting it in what would be a person’s kidneys, then twisting the head. The bot flashes red and then deactivates.

Is this some kind of hand to hand simulation? Jesse had thought Hanzo was a sniper. Then again, Hanzo does seem like the type to take broad martial interests.

Hanzo leans against the wall. Even from here Jesse can see his shoulders heaving as he tries to catch his breath. How long has he been doing this? There’s another bot approaching him. His head whips around, looking behind him, and he starts running again, but he’s heading right into the path of another bot. He strikes out at this one, but it blocks his opening attack, costing Hanzo the precious seconds he’d need to escape the first one. Jesse winces watching him getting boxed into a corner. He looks ragged, even from here.

One of the bots punches him in the side, and he drops with a shout Jesse can hear through the door. He punches the button to open it, running onto the floor.

“Athena, stop the simulation!” Jesse shouts.

“Acknowledged, Agent McCree,” Athena’s serene voice chimes. The bots immediately begin retreating.  Hanzo doesn’t say anything; he’s still on the floor breathing through clenched teeth. Jesse slides to a stop beside him, hands out. Now that he’s here, he’s unsure of what to do. Hanzo looks up at him, meets his eyes, then closes his own and swallows.

He’s not grabbing at the place his was hit, instead his hands are in front of him, clenched tightly. His face is pale, and he’s absolutely drenched in sweat. Jesse sets one hand on his forearm gently, and reaches for his shirt.

Underneath, the skin is black. At first he’s not sure what he’s looking at, but he realizes it’s a bruise. A _massive_ bruise. It disappears under the waistband of his pants and keeps going up toward his ribcage.  There’s a distinct outline in the damage, probably a taillight, based on Lena’s story.

“You seen the doc?” Jesse asks. Hanzo doesn’t say anything at first, just starts to push himself up. There’s a fine tremor in his arms. How long had he been in here? Jesse reaches out to help, but Hanzo's glare stays his hand.

“I’m fine,” he hisses.

“The hell you are,” Jesse says. He curls one arm under Hanzo’s shoulders and sticks the other under his knees. He’s not sure of the limits of his own strength, but no time like the present to find out.

He gets back to his feet with Hanzo in his arms.  Hanzo grabs a fistful of the back of his shirt with a look of panic. Jesse starts for the door as fast as he can. He can hold Hanzo, but he’s _heav_ y.

“Put me down!” Hanzo snarls.

“If I put you down, will you come with me or keep on going in here?” Jesse asks, still walking. Hanzo doesn’t answer for a long moment, but then he sighs.

“We shouldn’t waste the doctor’s time on a bruise.”

“That ain’t just some bump.”

Jesse elbows his way back out the door, careful not to bump Hanzo’s head or feet. Hanzo looks as if he’s considering his options.

“ _Fine_. Just put me down before someone sees.”

“You bolt, and I’ll raise hell,” Jesse warns, stopping. He tips Hanzo’s legs down first, lets him get his footing before letting go of his shoulders. Hanzo almost seems reluctant to let go of his shirt; he lets his hands drag when he lets go. His expression is still pinched, though not as pale.

Jesse has to concentrate to walk slowly enough for Hanzo to keep up. Between the pain and his exhaustion, he can barely match Jesse’s most sedate stride. The sound of his breathing is pathetic, short little gasps that don’t seem to be enough. If Jesse wasn’t sure he’d be furious, he’d try to pick Hanzo up again, just to give him a break.

Athena seems to have taken the initiative to summon Angela, as she’s already waiting for them in one of the exam rooms. Hanzo gives him a dirty look as Jesse shoos him inside, but Jesse refuses to be moved. Jesse steps in after him and leans back against the wall just inside the door as a bit of insurance.

“Athena said you collapsed while running a training simulation,” she says as she puts on a pair of exam gloves.

“I did not _collapse_ ,” he protests, but Jesse cuts in.

“He’s got a bruise the size of Cottontail.”

Angela lifts up his shirt and takes a long look at the bruise. She prods it, and Hanzo hisses, fisting his hands in the material of his pants. She frowns and pulls over her scanning equipment. She takes a few images, her frown deepening all the while.

“You have two cracked ribs,” Angela says evenly, but not without menace. “Why am I only now finding this out?”

“I didn’t find it debilitating.”

“Mr. Shimada, that is not a determination you are qualified to make. How did this happen?”

“Heard tell he got hit by a car.”

Hanzo scowls at him from the exam table, looking almost murderous. Screw him. What’s he trying to prove by hiding an injury like that? What if it had been worse?

Angela, for her part, looks furious.

“I was right there, Mr. Shimada! Did you spend the entire flight back arguing with your brother instead of telling me?”

“You would have locked me out of running combat simulations!” Hanzo protests.

“Yes, because you need rest to heal,” Angela replies, clearly exasperated. 

“ _Rest_ is not what I need,” Hanzo says sharply.

For a moment, they seem to be at an impasse. Hanzo remains staring hard at the doctor, but her eyes flicker to Jesse. Jesse wishes he didn’t have a part in this, but he knows he must, at least a little. He knows Hanzo feels guilty over what happened to him. He just didn’t know he’d been running himself ragged in CQC simulations over it. Hanzo’s eyes finally drop to the floor, and his anger fades into exhaustion. Angela lays her hand across Hanzo’s, leaning down to catch his gaze.

“If you’re concerned about your fitness, I understand, but you are no good to any one if you push yourself too hard. I’m putting you on medical leave, and I want you to rest. To get better.”

“If you insist,” Hanzo sighs. Angela turns to her equipment, punching something in and readying it. Jesse takes the opportunity to slip out. He’s probably stayed too long as it is.

 

* * *

 

Genji corners him the next morning. There’s no trace of his usual good humor, instead a solemn intensity. Jesse finds himself bracing for whatever it is Genji will say.

But Genji doesn’t say anything at first, he just pulls Jesse down into a quick, rough hug. Jesse claps him on the back, still unsure. Genji lets him go and clears his throat.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but I’m not sure for what.”

Genji shakes his head and looks away, huffing.

“Thank for making Hanzo see Angela. I _knew_ he was hurt, but he insisted he’d just be wasting her time.” Genji frowns and runs both his hands through his hair, then mutters. “I thought he’d quit with that, but I guess not.”

“Quit with what?”

“Quit—” Genji sighs, making an abortive gesture. “Quit not taking care of himself. I think he took you getting hurt harder than he wants to admit. He respected you. And I think that’s as close as he gets to being friends with someone.”

Jesse thinks, lines all the little moments with Hanzo up in his head. Is that all there was, professional respect? The last few months are still a blank in his mind. Older memories, ones that had been more deeply formative or often revisited, would be more resilient Angela had said. More recent ones would be more easily lost. He supposes, of the two of them, Genji would be the one to know.

“Well. I’m glad I got him to see sense too.”

 

* * *

 

_Lena groans, fruitlessly shaking the carton of milk over her mug of tea._

_“Not the milk too! How much longer are we going to be here?”_

_“Until we’re finished,” Torbj_ _ö_ _rn says. “We’ve still got plenty in the way of rations, lass. Patience is a virtue.”_

_Lena slumps to the table, the picture of misery._

_“We’re gettin’ low on coffee too, so unless you hid stims in that tool chest of yours, I’m thinkin’ we’re due for a supply run,” Jesse says. “I’ll go. That is if—”_

_Hanzo sets aside his tablet. They do not leave the safehouse except in pairs, for safety, and he and Jesse are a pair. Though the others do not_ know, _it’s no secret that Hanzo respects Jesse’s professionalism in the field._

_“Let’s go, before it gets any later.”_

_Jesse pulls a ball cap onto his head, pulling the brim down low, and tucks Peacekeeper in his belt under a coat. Hanzo’s relegated to a small knife in his coat sleeve, but, if Winston has done his job, then they’re more likely to be accosted by common muggers than their surveillance targets._

_Once they’re out of sight of the safehouse, Jesse drapes his arm over Hanzo’s shoulders. Hanzo reaches around his waist and hooks his fingers through Jesse’s belt loops._

_He’s missed just being able to touch Jesse the last few days, but it’s a small price to pay for being able to watch his back. It’s a nightmare, every time Jesse goes into the field without him. The waiting, the hours or days of uncertainty.  The knowledge that if Jesse was hurt, even if he knew immediately, he’d be powerless to do anything about it._

_No, it’s better to be here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close to being done. I'm so excited to get the last chapter up c:
> 
> Come say hi at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biggest thank you to soapasaurus, who beta'd this for me while my usual beta reader is out. I'm beyond grateful. So any mistakes are 100% on me for making last minute tweaks, because I can't get out of my own way haha

Jesse leans against the wall, trying to catch his breath. His lungs burn in his chest. His body armor has trapped his clammy, sweaty shirt against his skin. He pushes the discomfort aside and looks down at his weapon. Three more shots.

Jesse ducks and rolls out from cover, coming up and dropping two drones before they can fire.

“Area clear,” Athena says over the com in his ear.

“I’m comin’ around the side,” Jesse says to the team on the open channel. He reloads as he runs. There’s not many left now.

He sees the others. Hana’s taken the high ground, firing down at the drones to keep them pinned. Reinhardt is slowly moving around, covering most of the group as they edge toward the drones’ flank. He sees Genji at his three o’clock, also hiding.

“Got an idea, Genji, you ready?”

“Roger,” he replies.

“Guys,” Fareeha says—a warning—but Jesse just grins.

Jesse lobs two of his flashbangs into the last group of drones. They detonate with a loud bang, which reverberates in the closed space of the training room. Genji leaps in, throwing shuriken and drawing his sword. Jesse opens fire, drawing the attention of the recovering drones. He drops six, and Genji mops up the rest.

There’s a loud chime over the loudspeakers.

“Objective complete,” Athena says.

“Show offs,” Hana says, popping her gum over the line. Jesse tips his hat at her.

“It’s good to have you back, McCree!” Reinhardt calls, deactivating his shield.

“Yeah, really missed the sudden additions to the plan,” Fareeha says. Jesse can hear the eye roll in her tone.

“Exactly!” Reinhardt shouts, laughing.

Jesse ambles over to the group and walks out with them, residual adrenaline giving them more than the usual boisterousness. He gets more than his share of slaps on the back for his performance. Everyone is excited to have him back. And honestly, it feels good to be back.

Of course, there is a conspicuous absence. Hanzo’s still on medical leave. They modified the scenario to compensate for the lack of a sniper, but there were still moments where the cover fire from up high was sorely missed.

Hanzo’s been more scarce than usual, but if he had any hard feelings about Jesse’s hauling him into the medbay, he seemed to have gotten over them by the first time Jesse found him in some high, lonely spot. His knuckles were almost healed when Jesse saw him yesterday. Surely his side is healing up as well.

Jesse heads to his bunk for a quick shower and change of clothes. He rummages through his things for the bottle of whiskey he and Hanzo have been slowly drinking through as he combs out his wet hair. If he recalls correctly, there’s a few generous servings left, and he thinks a little bit of celebration is in order. He finds it under an undershirt that desperately needs washing.

He pours a finger out and lifts up the glass. The sharp, faintly sweet smell hits his nose. He takes a sip. It’s so smooth, there’s only the suggestion of a burn as it goes down to warm his chest. Not too much, just a little bit of bite—

            _“Try it. You’ll like it._ ”

            _Hanzo seems awfully confident, and so Jesse pours out a little of the whiskey. He takes a sip, not quite tentative but a little skeptical. Hanzo has expensive tastes, but Jesse’s not always convinced that what he likes is really that much better._

_This time, though, he might have a point._

_“You like it,” Hanzo says. Smug, but also clearly pleased with himself. Hanzo pours a finger for himself and raises the glass. Jesse taps it with his own._

Jesse stares at the bottle, rubbing his thumb over the worn label. Turns over the bottle in his hands. Turns the memory over in his head. Had Hanzo given him this? He wonders what the occasion had been.

Well, he supposes he could ask the next time he sees him.  

 

* * *

 

Jesse had a feeling he’d find Hanzo on their walkway. He smells the cigarette smoke before he sees him. He’s leaning on the railing, a dark silhouette backlit by the sunset. He turns to look, and raises his hand in greeting.

“Howdy.”

“Evening.”

Jesse lights up himself and joins Hanzo leaning on the railing.  They stand there for a long moment, watching the sun vanish under the horizon.

“How was the group training?” Hanzo asks.

“Good. At least, I think so.” Jesse flicks away his ashes. “Lookin’ forward to havin’ you there.”

Hanzo’s lips quirk up, just for a second. He twists in place a little, testing his range of motion.

“Hopefully it will be sooner than later. I have scores to defend, now that you’re back on the roster.”

“Oh?”

“You give me trouble,” Hanzo says, then takes another drag to avoid saying any more. He’s smiling though.

“I’ve got it on good authority I can give you more than that,” Jesse says, thinking of the videos from the range. Hanzo makes an indelicate noise and gives him a skeptical look. Jesse smiles at him, as shit eating as he can manage. Hanzo rolls his eyes and looks back out over the water.

“So, I remembered, you gave me that whiskey, didn’t you? You’ve got good taste.”

Hanzo turns to face him, surprised.

“I’ve been telling you that for a while,” he says. His expression is a little intense, but there’s some mischief in it. Jesse is intensely reminded of Genji. It’s a look he’d expect coming from him instead.

            _Genji’s taller than Jesse expected. But then, Jesse’s only ever seen him lying down. He looks off balance, both literally and metaphorically. He’s clearly thinking hard about every move before he makes it._

_“Lookin’ good, partner.”_

_Genji grunts, dismissive. It’s almost a snarl._

_“I look like a fucking monster.” He flexes his right hand—open, close, open close._

_“You do have that whole ‘fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch comin’ down’ thing goin’ on, but I wasn’t gonna bring it up.”_

_“God, you’re an asshole,” Genji says, but he laughs as he says it. Everyone else, from the nurses to the engineers, treat him like broken glass, but that’s not how to make friends with Genji. The man needs someone to treat him like he’s a person, not a science project._

_“Hey, Jesse?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Does Reyes keep his promises?”_

_Jesse frowns. That’s a hell of a question._

_“Every promise he’s made to me. Why?”_

_“He said he’d help me find my brother. And let me do whatever I needed when I do.”_

_Jesse’s heard a hell of a lot about Genji’s motherfucker of a big brother the last few months. Genji’s no saint, but how the hell could anyone do that to his own brother? Hell, if anyone so much as looks at Fareeha funny, Jesse sees red, and he wasn’t even raised with her._

_“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a promise he’ll keep. And I’ll help him keep it.”_

Jesse’s on the ground. How did he get on the ground? Hanzo is staring at him, hands outstretched and halfway to touching him. Jesse recoils.

“Jesse, are you all right?” Hanzo asks, pulling his hands back. Jesse can only stare at him. He can’t reconcile the memory with the man standing in front of him.

“Did you? You and Genji?” Jesse blurts.

Hanzo freezes, the color draining from his face.

“Yes,” he whispers. Chokes, really. “Yes. I did it.”

Hanzo backs away from him, then turns and runs through the door. Jesse can only watch him go.

 

* * *

 

Jesse goes to look for Genji and finds him in his bunk. Genji’s expression morphs into concern the instant he sees Jesse.

“What happened?”

“We gotta talk.”

Genji steps aside to let him in and goes to sit cross legged on the bed. Jesse drops into his chair. He looks at Genji, who’s looking hard back at him. Genji’s wearing just a pair of sweatpants, so Jesse can see the mangled wreckage of his torso. His skin is mottled with scar tissue, much worse that any spot on Jesse’s own skin. The other side of his chest could be some synthetic skin graft or it could be a complete reconstruction; Jesse lacks the expertise to tell, and if he ever knew it he hasn’t remembered yet. Still, Jesse knows with bone deep certainty that Genji’s body is more machine than not. How could someone do that to another person?

“I remembered about your brother.”

Genji jerks, sitting up straight.

“What did you remember?”

“Enough.”

Genji shakes his head, frowning.

“No, no, I don’t think you have. What was it?”

Jesse sucks his lips against his teeth. He wishes he had something to smoke. Well, nothing for it now.

“You, finally gettin’ back on your feet. The promise Reyes and I made you.”

Genji sighs, scratching his hand through his hair. The green is starting to fade into something sickly.

“Of course that’s what you’d remember first. Look, Jesse, I was a different man then.”

“He tried to kill you! He damn near did it!”

“Yes. And the truth of the matter is that I didn’t make it hard for him. I pissed off a lot of very dangerous people, and I made his life difficult whenever I could. The night, when he did it, he gave me an ultimatum: get my shit together, or deal with the consequences for once in my life. But I was grieving and angry, we both were, and well—it escalated. But I’ve lost years of my life being angry over something I can’t change, and I gained nothing from it. I’m done. I’ve moved on. I want him to, as well. Somewhere inside him there’s an honorable man who could do a lot of good. And I’d be proud to call that man my brother.”

Genji stares at him, looking as if he’s bracing for something. Jesse sighs and slumps down in the chair, then throws his hands up. Genji laughs a little, his own posture relaxing in relief. Jesse shoots him a look.

“This conversation went a lot better than the last time we had it. You thought I was crazy. Everyone thought I was crazy.”

“To be fair, it sounds crazy.”

“And I brought him here anyway. I know you don’t remember, but he’s already a different person. He’s more like—” Genji pauses, looking down into his lap with a wistful look. “He’s more like the brother I remember from when we were children. Please, trust me when I say you’ve already put him through the wringer, and now you’ve both moved on.”

Jesse thinks about all the time he’s spent with Hanzo, how much he’s enjoyed it. How he’d risked his life to save Lena, jumped to Mei’s defense at only a hint of trouble. These people seem to trust him. He had trusted him, at one point.

“I can do that.”

 

* * *

 

The image of Hanzo running out the door haunts Jesse. He knows he needs to talk to him, to explain that he’d talked to Genji. That he’d gotten the whole story. But it’s been days and he hasn’t seen him once.

No one else has, either.

Athena assures him that Hanzo is physically well, but that’s all she’ll say on the matter. Jesse suspects Hanzo’s asked her not to tell anyone his whereabouts. He’ll have to turn up eventually. The Watchpoint’s big, but it’s not that big.

In the meantime, Jesse’s trying to reach the end of the material Athena had given him. He’s made it to the reports from the last few months. He closes the last report from a solo deployment to South America. It was dead dry, so boring it was almost painful, and didn’t provide him with any of the insight he was looking for. He closes and deletes it. It might have been the last one, but he checks again to make sure.

There, the last unopened file in his personal directory, is something titled _HumanReadable-M.361.log_ . All the rooms in the medbay have “M” and a number stenciled over the doors, and he doesn’t remember the number over his, but he thinks they all start with _3_. He opens the file.

It’s lines and lines of text. Timestamps, followed by alphanumeric codes, followed by names. Dozens and dozens. The first few seem random, with many of the residents of the Watchpoint appearing. Every member of the strike team that went out with him is there. Then they begin to get repetitive. Dr. Ziegler and Lucio appear frequently, along with Genji and his sister and—

Shimada, Hanzo?

Hanzo’s name appears over and over, timestamped between 0100 and 0400 every time. He’d stayed for about two hours every night, well between Dr. Ziegler’s visits.  Jesse scrolls through the file and doesn’t really believe his eyes. Hanzo’s polite enough, sure, maybe he’d even call him friendly, but Jesse can’t imagine him spending the small hours of the morning sitting with him at his bedside. Hell, according to the logs, _nobody_ stayed through the night. As short of a walk as it is from the barracks to the medbay, Jesse doesn’t hold that against anyone.

“Athena?”

“Yes, Agent McCree?”

“Is this—is this real?”

“Yes, that log file is accurate.”

Jesse stares at it, completely at a loss.

            _It was dark, too dark to see anything. He hurt all over. He tried to move his hand_ — _it had felt like someone was there_ — _and that’s when he heard him say his name._

_“Jesse?”_

_The voice was low, colored with equal parts fear and hope._

He didn’t recognize it then, but now he think he knows who it belonged to. He has to find Hanzo, right now. He shoves himself back from his desk and runs out the door. The one place he hasn’t been able to check is also the closest. He’ll start at Hanzo’s room, then work out from there.

Jesse knocks at the door, hard and sharp. He even leans against the door, listening for any sound coming from inside. He almost jumps out of his skin when Athena’s voice comes from the keypad next to him.

“You have standing permission to enter this room, Agent McCree,” she says. Jesse stares at the door controls, hesitating, but the door opens without him doing anything. It’s empty. He should move on, he really should, but he steps inside anyway, as if compelled. The door slides shut behind him.

Hanzo’s room isn’t as tidy as he was expecting. Clothes are piled on the floor of his closet, spilling out into the room. The trash can is filled with bottles, with even more piled around it, cheap liquor by the smell. The bed is unmade, with a towel shoved under the pillows.

Jesse steps closer. No, not a towel, a serape, like the ones hanging in his closet. It’s a deep blue, a little less worn than his red one, but the pattern around the edge is the same. It looks like it had been half-heartedly hidden. Jesse picks it up, rubs his fingers over the rough material. He tries to tug it all the way out, and as he does something tumbles out onto the bed.

A phone, scratched up and half charged. Jesse turns it over in his hands. It’s a lot like the one Winston gave him to replace the one lost in the field. He bumps one of the buttons on accident, and the screen lights up, presenting him with a grid of numbers. He stares at it for a long time, but nothing comes to him. He tries the code to his room, but that doesn’t do it. At least he’s not that dumb.

The biometric scanner is outlined in blue pixels, staring at him like an eye at the bottom of the screen. This could be Hanzo’s phone. He could be the type of man to leave his phone stuffed under his pillows, Jesse truly doesn’t know, but this looks like it was hidden.

Jesse touches his thumb to the scanner. The grid disappears and he’s greeted with a stylized image of John Wayne. His lips quirk up, and he drops to the edge of the bed. He opens the chat application, and there’s about a dozen threads. Some of the names he recognizes, like _Reinhardt_ , _Winston_ , and _Angela_ , but the others are nicknames. There’s _Cottontail_ , _PITA_ , and _Kemosabe_. He taps Kemosabe, since it’s at the top of the list, and starts to read, even if he feels like he’s seeing something private. It’s a lot of pictures and seemingly random non sequiturs. He catches Genji’s familiar neon thatch of hair, bright acid green at the time, in the bottom of the second most recent picture, and that resolves who this is. PITA is clearly his sister; she writes exactly how she speaks. Without the context of the years they lived together, it’s hard to tell if the barbs are just teasing or if there’s some animosity there, but with the way Fareeha has been close, he thinks it must just be the former. Cottontail must be Hana, and he confirms it when he sees a selfie of hers pop up.

There’s one name that he doesn’t see until he scrolls just a little further down. _Mi corazón._

The texts in that thread are just that, text. There’s hardly anything to pick apart; whoever this is, they mostly just tell each other where they’ll be and to be careful. Over and over again, that’s the most frequent thing he says. _Be careful, be safe, take care._

Jesse closes that application and opens the gallery. There’s a bunch of screenshots and macros cluttering up the main album, but he doggedly scrolls through. He finds a picture of Genji climbing the comm tower with an open beer in one hand. The next picture is of Genji, waving and leaning casually against one of the struts. There’s one of Fareeha looking furious with pink frosting in her hair. Another of Hana and Lucio sneaking up on a sleeping Winston. Several blurry photos of Winston.

He finds an album dropped in the middle, titled simply _New Album_. He opens it. He taps the first image. It’s Hanzo frowning slightly and staring cross-eyed at the tip of his own nose. There’s a bright white dab of something, probably ice cream based on the cone at the bottom of the frame.

There’s a video after that, and he starts it without thinking. He hears his own laughter, though it’s only Hanzo in the frame. His hair is down, gathered loosely on one shoulder. They could be in this room, it’s hard to tell for certain.

 _“C’mon babe, sing it with me. Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips_.”

“ _Jesse, please,_ ” Hanzo says, laughing softly. He reaches out and pushes the camera away, but Jesse gets him back in the frame. There’s a little color in his cheeks, but his eyes are twinkling.

“ _We should just kiss like real people do,_ ” Jesse continues, but interrupts himself with a laugh. Hanzo covers his face, his shoulders shaking.

“ _You’re serious?_ ” Hanzo says. “ _Fine_ . _I could not ask you where you came from_ —”

Jesse joins in with him. Hanzo smiles widely as he sings. His voice is beautiful.

“ _I could not ask you, neither could you_ . _Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips_.”

Jesse laughs again. He must have been giddy. Hanzo laughs when he does, losing the thread of the song. Maybe they were a little drunk? It’s hard to say. The video stops on a frame of Hanzo staring at the camera with a dazzling smile, a blush now spread across his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears.

There are more pictures after the video. Him and Hanzo, with a small pond in the background. Hanzo, leaning over a railing backlit by the setting sun. Hanzo, sleeping on the rec room couch. Hanzo, looking smug under the training room scoreboard. Him and Hanzo, his lips pressed to Hanzo’s cheek and Hanzo wearing the smallest smile. Him and Hanzo, both grinning on a pier with the ocean spread out behind them.

Jesse drops the phone to his lap. He tries to remember, he really does, but there’s nothing.  The gulf in his head, which had been shrinking, yawns wider than ever. Why hadn’t anyone told him about this? About _them_?

“What are you doing in here?”

Jesse jumps, his gaze snapping to the door. Hanzo is standing just over the threshold, his brows knit down, but not in anger. It’s confusion, tinged with that wariness that pervades everything about Hanzo. Jesse has been caught red handed snooping in Hanzo’s quarters and Hanzo’s only confused. It breaks Jesse’s heart and he doesn’t know why.

He has to know why.

“What’re these?” he asks. Hanzo looks to the phone in his hand, and the color drains from his face. He steps over the threshold and the door slides shut behind him with a soft _whoosh_. Jesse holds out the phone, the last picture still open, and Hanzo steps forward to take it. He presses one hand to his mouth as he looks at the screen. He looks like he just received a blow the gut.

“It’s the two of us.”

“Yeah. _Us_.”

Hanzo doesn’t say anything more, he just stares at the screen like it’s both a lifeline and the water he’s drowning in.

“I keep circlin’ back ‘round to the same conclusion, Hanzo, so how about you just tell me straight. Why’s a blue serape and a phone keyed to my fingerprints in your room?”

Hanzo looks up at him. He looks _hurt_ for just a moment, and then he looks down to the floor. When he meets Jesse’s eyes again, he’s schooled his expression into something perfectly neutral. The only thing giving him away is the sheen in his eyes.

“I should have returned them with the rest of your things. I apologize for keeping them.”

“There was more here?”

Hanzo nods tightly.

“You often left things here. I took them back to your room while you were recovering.”

“Instead of telling me about us?”

“Why? The Jesse who left them here is gone,” Hanzo bites out, looking away again. The way he says it pulls Jesse up short. It’s vicious, cruel in a way that Jesse is pretty sure he doesn’t deserve. He knows he’s missing something, and he is sick to death of the feeling. He’s also starting to get mad.

Hanzo holds the phone out, but there’s a faint trembling in his hand. Even if he’s not meeting Jesse’s eyes, he can see Hanzo’s face is still neutral but, Christ, those eyes. Those eyes are the very picture of misery. Jesse snatches the phone, sets it on the bed.

“After everything I’ve done, I never deserved you anyway,” Hanzo mumbles. Jesse doesn’t think he was meant to hear that.

“How come nobody told me we were together?” Jesse asks.

“They couldn’t. They didn’t know.”

“Nobody? We didn’t tell nobody?”

“I insisted. I was terrified of this happening, that proximity to me would get you hurt. When you didn’t remember—” Hanzo pauses, blowing out a shaky breath. “When you didn’t remember, I though it safest not to tell you. I couldn’t expect you to continue as we had been in your present state, and if you never remembered, maybe it would be for the best.”

“You’ve got some nerve, decidin’ that for me,” Jesse says, his voice low and even.

“Your life was too dangerous with me in it! You can’t even properly comprehend that, _because you were with me that night!”_ Hanzo hisses, his whole body trembling with unspent tension. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. He screws his eyes shut, but tears well up anyway, sliding down his cheeks. “I had to watch my Jesse die in that dirty, lonely alley. You aren’t him anymore, but I still love you. But loving you hurts like loving him never did.”

Jesse stares at him with his lips parted, anger evaporating. He moves into Hanzo’s space, slowly and deliberately, and wraps his arms around the other man. Hanzo melts against him, clinging to Jesse like he’s the last solid thing in the universe. Hanzo pressed against him feels like coming home. He can’t remember ever having done it before, not right now, but he doesn’t want to stop. It’s _right_ in a way few things have been lately.

“I thought you were dead, at first,” Hanzo croaks softly. “It was dark and you were so still and there was so much blood. And it was all because of me.”

Jesse rubs a small circle between Hanzo’s shoulders, and lays his cheek against the crown of Hanzo’s head. His hair smells faintly of pine and something else warm and masculine. It’s soft where it’s long and prickly where his undercut is growing out. Jesse tries to brand it all into his memory. He’s not going to forget a second time.

Hanzo’s crying is almost silent, and he faintly trembles while fighting down sobs. Jesse wonders if Hanzo has always guarded himself this closely around him. Maybe he’d never been this overwhelmed before. Jesse starts humming tunelessly without thinking much about it. It feels right. He holds Hanzo a little tighter, because that too feels right. Hanzo makes a small noise, a soft little groan, barely audible.

But that little sound opens the floodgates. Jesse’s head starts pounding as he tries to process a thousand things at once. He lets go of Hanzo to place his hands on his head. He remembers the first time he kissed Hanzo—

_Half buzzed with exhaustion after a long op. Hanzo had been lurking in the corner of the common room, looking unfairly gorgeous with his hair down and his face lit up by his tablet. No one was around and when Jesse called his name, he’d looked up with an eyebrow cocked and that infuriating, tempting smirk. Jesse had thought ‘fuck it’ and walked over, leaned down, and got a taste of that smirk. Might have knocked it off his face in the process, but damned if some shock and a blush didn’t look just as good. Hanzo paid him back twice as hard, never could abide not getting the last word._

He remembers the way this room used to look—

_Every damn thing has a place. Neat to the point of looking unlived in. He’s scowling at Jesse for leaving his boots and pants in a heap under the chair, but Jesse rolls him over and tosses the blanket over his head._

_“There, can’t see, it’s not buggin’ you.”_

_Hanzo gently jabs Jesse in the side, his accuracy unerring even now. Jesse laughs and pulls the blanket back._

_“You’re going to pay for that,”_ _Hanzo says, mock serious. Jesse ends up not minding the payback very much._

The pile of liquor bottles sits in brutal contrast to what Jesse remembers. The unmade bed, the clothes on the floor, none of this is right.

He’s sitting on the bed, not sure how he got back there. Hanzo is kneeling in front of him, his hands gripping Jesse’s knees. He looks petrified, his eyes still red and his lashes still wet. Jesse’s staring at him, can’t seem to make himself stop. Hanzo’s gotten thinner, his face a little bit hollow and his complexion a lot more sickly. Those circles under his eyes, which had started to fade under Jesse’s watch, are back and almost black now.

Hanzo’s been in here _suffering_ , all alone, for weeks. Jesse remembers the way Hanzo would eviscerate himself over every mistake, real or imagined. He’s locked himself away to grind salt into his wounds, to make sure he wouldn’t heal. Jesse wants to be sick. It had been shit luck, no fault of either of theirs, but Hanzo wouldn’t have seen it like that. The evidence is all around.

Jesse pulls him up, tips them both back. Hanzo just lets him, searching his face the entire time—

_Hanzo, a little bit possessive and a little bit bossy, shoving and prodding until he has Jesse exactly where he wants him. Hanzo takes him apart with the same focus and intensity he applies to every other thing, and Jesse doesn’t want to be anywhere else._

“I took you by surprise the first time I kissed you,” Jesse says.

His hands drift on their own down to Hanzo’s waist. Hanzo doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he smiles, really smiles, even with his eyes still wet.

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” Hanzo replies, laughing softly.

Hanzo’s forearms are resting on either side of his head. He threads his fingers into Jesse’s hair, cradling his head.  Jesse soaks it in. Tugs Hanzo a little closer. He feels as if he needs to make up for lost time, even though it’s only been a few weeks.

Jesse stretches up, presses their lips together. This is what Jesse notices right away: Hanzo tastes like home. Hanzo hums, shifts slightly to get a better angle, and steals his breath away.

 

* * *

 

Jesse’s magnificently comfortable in Hanzo’s bed. He doesn’t want to move, even if he could.

Hanzo is sleeping on his chest, one arm thrown bonelessly across Jesse and their legs tangled together. Hanzo had talked until he’d dozed off, relaying everything he could remember about their relationship. Things are coming back to Jesse, but he craves every scrap of their history.

It’s only partly to do with the way Hanzo smiles when he tells it.

Because he can, Jesse twists a few strands of Hanzo’s hair around his finger. It’s luxuriously soft. His insistence on playing with it might have hastened Hanzo on his way to sleep, but that’s all right. Hanzo needs the rest.

As does he. He lets his eyes drift closed, tries to match his breathing to Hanzo’s. He feels certain that tonight, he’ll sleep all the way through

 

 

* * *

 

_“What’re you worried about? No one’s gonna mind.”_

_Jesse waves his cigar around to punctuate his point. He’s made it before. They’ve had this—_ argument _is too strong a word, it’s not that heated—discussion over and over. They keep retreading the same old path, never finding a way off._

_“Jesse,” Hanzo sighs._

_He wishes Jesse would drop it, but he can’t fault him. He can’t fully articulate the fear that chills him to his bones when he thinks of anyone knowing just how much Jesse means to him. He has so many enemies, so many people who would hurt Jesse just because Hanzo values him. If that ever happened—_

_Hanzo sucks his cigarette down to the filter rather than thinking more._

_Jesse is looking at him with those big, soft eyes. They don’t have the rest of the discussion out loud; they don’t need to. Hanzo lets his shoulders slump_ —what if someone came after you? _Jesse steps a little closer and huffs_ —ain’t scared, let ‘em come _. Jesse pulls his cigar out of his mouth and pulls Hanzo in—_ I love you _. Hanzo rests his head on Jesse’s chest, listens to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat—_ I love you, too _._

 _Maybe just telling Overwatch wouldn’t be so bad. He’s sick of the lying and the sneaking around in what is supposed to be their home. They are as safe here as they can be. Jesse is right_ — _their friends, their family would be happy for them. Hanzo’s paranoia is buying them nothing._

_“Let’s just get through this mission. Then, if you still want to, we’ll tell them.”_

_Jesse kisses his temple, and Hanzo can feel his smile. He stretches up to get a taste. As long as he has this, he can bear anything._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS FINISHED. IT IS DONE. 
> 
> As always, I'm lurking around and posting drabbles at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


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